Reflecting on his two-year anniversary as head of Sita, Mavuso Msimang rates its progress on its restructuring journey and maps the way forward IT`S exactly two years since he took over at the helm of the State Information Technology Agency, Sita, and Mavuso Msimang seems confident he`s steering it in the right direction.

Msimang has had his hands full getting his ship in shape, so to speak, having now completed the restructuring of the agency that until recently consisted of a series of inefficient silos, the legacy of its original founders: National Treasury, the SA Police Service and the Department of Defence (DOD).

One example of this is that the DOD had one Sita business unit devoted solely to itself, while another serviced all the other `civilian` departments of government.

The agency now consists of a restructured IT Acquisition Centre (Itac), a client services business unit, a hosting services and data centre business unit, the Government Common Core Network (with some 70 000 users), called the Infrastructure Division, a new professional services unit to manage projects, a new information management services unit, and a research and development division.

The effect of this restructuring has been a 13% reduction in staff numbers to some 3 400. "Our infrastructure was bloated, and although we took care to retain critical skills and we remain sensitive to issues of retrenchment, rightsizing was necessary," says Msimang.

"I`m really happy with the team we`ve assembled; it represents a mixture of the best talent in the private and public sectors."

This restructuring is now bedded down, says Msimang. That is, "unless Cabinet approves the Integrated Finance Management System (IFMS), in which case, as the prime systems integrator, Sita will need to develop further scenarios for restructuring". The IFMS, a seven-year R10 billion ERP system planned for the entire government, and driven by National Treasury, has been in the pipeline for some time, and could be approved at any time, he notes.

Msimang now has his sights set on "radically improving" service delivery to clients, one aspect of which is the improvement of Sita`s project management.

He hopes to do this with the help of a newly-formed strategic project review committee and the adoption of a best practice model, the so-called Tau model.

In terms of Tau, Sita is held to its mandate of providing IT services to all government departments, but must consider its options in executing it, which includes outsourcing.

"If getting the best in the market c can result in improved efficiencies, lower costs and faster turnaround, without compromising information security, then that is the route we will take. We do not have to own all assets to deliver to clients)," he elaborates.

Sita`s procurement arm, Itac, long rated one of the organisation`s worst performing business centres, also remains under Msimang`s watchful eye. Although the department was overhauled, management and staff changed, processes were streamlined and turnaround times reduced by 50%, it remains a work in progress. An e-procurement system is to be installed in the second half of this financial year, to automate procurement processes and further shorten tendering times and improve efficiencies.

Another passion of Msimang`s is the improvement of communication, both within and outside the organisation. "Sita`s done a lot of great things over the years, for example, our hosted government application systems have uptime in excess of 98%, and yet this is never communicated to our clients or our employees," he remarks, somewhat exasperated, bemoaning the fact that the media usually focuses on Sita`s procurement, which was in a shambles for a long time.

"Our new communications unit is pivotal in our restructuring," he suggests.

As part of this drive, Sita now has an independently assessed corporate scorecard to measure its performance in the eyes of staff, users and suppliers.

"We`re keen to be transparent I don`t want to hide, because the truth always comes out eventually," remarks Msimang wryly.

One of the flies in the ointment for him, perhaps, is Sita`s low capex for the last financial year due to cash flow problems: some R124 million, down from R151 million in 2003/4. Although he claims service delivery was not adversely affected, the under-expenditure in the mainframe and networks environment, in particular, will have be addressed in the current financial year.