By REGINALD KANYANE
3 September 2025 – The Portfolio Committee on Public Service welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s signing of a proclamation expanding the scope and temporal range of the Special Investigating Unit’s (SIU) investigation into the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) tender.
The committee said in addition to probing the National Treasury, the new proclamation now also includes the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).
The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, Jan de Villiers said SITA has consistently received qualified audit outcomes, ultimately regressing to a disclaimer audit opinion for the 2023/24 financial year. De Villiers said this means that key role players within the SITA accountability ecosystem have failed to provide credible financial reports that are supported by reliable information.
“SITA has been accused of slowing down, rather than speeding up, the government’s digitisation efforts. Digitalisation is key to the improvement of public service delivery by modernising government ICT infrastructure, among other initiatives.
“The expanded proclamation now enables the SIU to examine actions dating back to 1 July 2013, as opposed to the original 1 January 2016 start date. The alleged corruption related to IFMS has negatively impacted efforts to advance digital transformation in the public service,” he said.
De Villiers further said government departments are still using manual systems to provide human resource management, financial management, and supply chain management services, despite the committee’s long-standing call for a centralised human resource management system. He added that siloed and fragmented systems, which are still primarily paper-based, undermine professionalisation and efforts to build a capable state.
“The committee considers the expanded proclamation as a vital step towards upholding accountability and transparency in the public sector, especially given the committee’s focus on the implementation of the National Framework Towards Professionalising the Public Sector and the Government of National Union’s efforts in building an ethical and capable state.
“By broadening the scope to include additional departments and by covering a longer period of time, the SIU will be better positioned to expose maladministration, irregularities and systemic weaknesses in the procurement processes linked to the IFMS,” said de Villiers.
He said the committee urged the SIU to fast-track its investigation to ensure that, where wrongdoing is confirmed, those implicated are suspended and, where necessary, arrested. De Villiers said while the committee recognises that the SIU operates most effectively within a coordinated anti-corruption ecosystem, working alongside Parliament, the Presidency, law enforcement and public institutions, it is confident that, where wrongdoing is established, the SIU will use its mandate to pursue civil recoveries, make appropriate disciplinary referrals and recommend criminal prosecution in collaboration with law enforcement agencies.
De Villiers said the committee will exercise its oversight to ensure that accountability is upheld at every stage of the process.
“We support this new approach and reaffirm our commitment to monitoring the progress of the expanded investigation to help ensure that outcomes are communicated transparently to the public.
“We see this as an important step towards restoring public confidence in government systems as well as professionalising and modernising the state,” he said.
The Guardian 