Officials appear to be uncharged for corruption

24 August 2012
Release: immediate

In this week’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs meeting, the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) presented its report on an investigation into tender corruption conducted by the Auditor-General (AG). This report showed that there was corruption involved in the Smart Card tender process.

In May 2008 the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) instructed SITA to prepare a tender. The tender was for the supply, installation and maintenance of Smart Cards as well as a card production facility.  However, in September of that year an anonymous letter was received alleging improprieties relating to the evaluation of the tender.

The report revealed that tender procedures and regulations were not complied with. These include, amongst others, the failure by SITA to open the bids publically as required by regulation, irregular appointments of Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC) members and discrepancies in the finalisation and consolidation of and individual scoring by BEC members. The investigation further revealed that a SITA employee failed to disclose vested interests and did not excuse himself from meetings.

The Auditor General uncovered this and initially investigated the matter in 2009 after which an external independent audit was undertaken. A presentation was made in 2010 to the Committee “in committee” and behind closed doors - documents tabled on that day had to be handed in. They claimed that this is a high level investigation and that there are security issues. To date there are 2 officials that are undergoing a disciplinary process but will apparently not be charged as “no money was spent”.

The recommendations by SITA include the need to improve procurement process. However, the recommendations do not include the charging of individuals concerned. Individuals involved should be charged and the full process of the law should be followed.

I will today be writing to the Minister of Home Affairs to ask what the status of the disciplinary hearing is and whether these individuals will be relieved of their duties. All forms of corruption need to be stamped out of Home Affairs.