By OBAKENG MAJE
1 April 2025- The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development today urged the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) to get its house in order and stabilise the organisation as its inefficiencies impacted the work of government. The Chairperson of the Committee, Xola Nqola said, the meeting comes hot on the heels of the committee’s oversight visit last week to entities in the justice portfolio in KwaZulu-Natal, where SITA was singled out as a major impediment to courts operating effectively due to connectivity and infrastructure issues.
Nqola said it comes across as if there are delays in what the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD) have been planning to do due to SITA. He further said as far back as last year, they took an official committee decision to call SITA and the department to iron out the challenges.
“Today, the committee received a briefing on the implementation of the integrated justice system (IJS) from the DOJ&CD, which are the lead departments on the matter. The Office of the Auditor-General (AGSA), the Department of Social Development, the National Treasury, Legal Aid South Africa, the National Prosecuting Authority and the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) provided input.
“The committee took a dim view that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) indicated that it would not participate in the meeting and the fact that the South African Police Services did not respond at all to the meeting invitation,” he said.
Nqola added all these systems should speak to each other. He said Home Affairs is the starting point.
“You need to be registered at birth and later receive an identity document for identification. Yet they are not here to make valuable contributions. The committee heard that the primary objective of the IJS Programme is to electronically enable and integrate the end-to-end criminal justice business processes, from reporting a crime to releasing a convicted person through technology solutions.
“Furthermore, it aims to manage the related inter-departmental information exchanges across the criminal justice system (CJS). The IJS is also used to fight fraud in the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and verify the identity of social grant beneficiaries using the Home Affairs Database,” said Nqola.
He said the IJS enables integration of SASSA to DHA, making near real-time person verification service available. Nqola said the committee heard that SITA does not have the capacity to deliver on IJS projects.
“SITA resources are used to work on multiple projects simultaneously and end up being inundated with work. SITA supply chain processes are also cumbersome. The DOJ&CD said a further concern is an ageing and/or obsolete infrastructure, which remains a challenge across the CJS and may lead to vulnerability to cyber-attacks.
“SITA acknowledged that it has capacity issues due to a high vacancy rate. The organisation is unstable due to a challenge with a previous board that was dissolved and who took the matter to court. An interim board was appointed, and the court reinstated the old board,” he said.
Nqola said the end product was the interim board mixed with the old one. He said the Integrated Justice System (IJS) programme is a government initiative that strives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the South African criminal justice process.
“It is driving a multi-department effort to increase the probability of successful investigation, prosecution, punishment, and rehabilitation of offenders and their release back into society to realise a national objective that all South Africans are and feel safe.
“The AGSA highlighted the fact that SITA was slow in addressing the AG’s recommendations and has now received a disclaimer audit opinion. The meeting was constructive as the committee believed in a joint solution to joint problems,” said Nqola.
He said the committee and the AG now bear the responsibility of strengthening accountability to see through the problems engulfing the entire system. Nqola urged the acting Chairperson of the SITA Board to stabilise the organisation so that it could make progress.
“The SITA has short-term and long-term goals. Getting the OCJ and high courts online is a short-term goal; it’s low-hanging fruits that you can quickly pick. We urge SITA to work with DOJ&CD to ensure connectivity in the courts, or the case backlog will pile up.
“We need to reach the objectives of the IJS, which state that it must be efficient and effective. We will have regular meetings to track the progress on IJS,” said Nqola.
The Guardian 