Sita lashes out over broadband debacle

STATE Information Technology Agency (Sita) has spoken out against the Eastern Cape government, saying it was looking for the quickest way of rolling out the multimillion-rand broadband project by failing to follow the right procedures.

Sita executive for multistakeholder projects Sithembele Senti said this in East London last week.

Senti said the piggyback to the Western Cape provincial government’s broadband had not been approved by Sita.

“The Eastern Cape province came to us to roll out the broadband, they were looking for the quickest way, and we told them about what we’ve encountered with the Western Cape project, and Western Cape wrote to them telling them to come to us for advice,” Senti said.

He said they had raised many issues with the Eastern Cape government.

“There’s an issue of escalation costs and we need to empower locals. We advised for an open tender,” he said.

For broadband and other similar projects, Sita is supposed to be hands on with the national Treasury.

Documents from the Western Cape government suggested that provincial director-general Marion Mbina-Mthembu approach Sita to piggyback on their broadband tender.

Mbina-Mthembu’s request for the piggyback was rejected by both Sita and the national Treasury. But the province forged ahead and secured the services of Liquid Telecom to do the work.

To date, R228-million has been paid to the company.

Sita, according to Senti, would not allow something that was not approved by the national Treasury to happen.

“For an example, we would procure for the Eastern Cape government, not them to procure from Liquid Telecom.

“We wrote to them back and forth and two officials from Sita were seconded to assist the Eastern Cape province for this project.

“We never authorised them to piggyback and the contract will be between the service provider and Sita,” Senti said.

Despite documentary proof of payments to the company – R171-million and R57-million – provincial Treasury spokeswoman Nosisa Sogayise said yesterday no money had been paid to Liquid Telecom.

Meanwhile, the DA has called for the Eastern Cape provincial Treasury to investigate how the Office of the Premier authorised R228-million to Liquid Telecom for broadband.

The opposition party’s call comes after the ANC said it had instructed its deployees in government to establish an ad hoc committee to investigate the controversial project.

DA MPL Bobby Stevenson called for Finance MEC Sakhumzi Somyo to publicly state whether or not the payment of R171-million to Liquid Telecom had been made.