THE Department of Correctional Services has forked out more than R64-million in the last financial year to pay IT consultants, yet its staff can barely send and receive e-mails.
The department's director-general, Tom Moyane, yesterday told MPs that despite millions paid to consultants, including some who earned R820000 for a five-day job, his department's IT network was simply not reliable.
He was addressing Parliament during an interrogation of the department's annual report for the 2010-2011 financial year by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).
Moyane stunned MPs when he told them that his department had paid R64-million to about 189 IT consultants who had been brought in to help jack-up its "unstable" IT systems.
He said some of the consultants have been with the department for 25 years.
"We have consultants who have been in the department for more than 25 years, so those are the problems we are trying to deal with.
"The department has been very lazy in dealing with its IT, so we are putting corrective measures in place," Moyane said.
A shocked chairman of the Scopa, Themba Godi, said: "It's like a consultants' paradise."
Moyane said: "The discussions with Sita (state information technology agency) is to create the infrastructure (that would) be functional. We have signed an agreement that this has to be in place next year."
Sita is a government agency that has been created to help state entities develop their IT systems.
But Sita top brass, who were also present during the heated Scopa meeting, confessed to MPs that staff at Correctional Services had been battling for years to send out e-mails, which are meant to provide prompt communication among staff members.
"There was a bottleneck created within the DCS infrastructure . it's been a number of years that the problem (has existed)," Sita account manager Neo Sithole said.
Moyane also said the department has started building internal IT capacity after he hired at least 40 IT network controllers this year.
ANC MP Salam Abram said the government would continue to be milked by private service providers until it started applying "commercial principles".
Prisons a 'paradise for consultants'
THE Department of Correctional Services has forked out more than R64-million in the last financial year to pay IT consultants, yet its staff can barely send and receive e-mails.
The department's director-general, Tom Moyane, yesterday told MPs that despite millions paid to consultants, including some who earned R820000 for a five-day job, his department's IT network was simply not reliable.
He was addressing Parliament during an interrogation of the department's annual report for the 2010-2011 financial year by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).
Moyane stunned MPs when he told them that his department had paid R64-million to about 189 IT consultants who had been brought in to help jack-up its "unstable" IT systems.
He said some of the consultants have been with the department for 25 years.
"We have consultants who have been in the department for more than 25 years, so those are the problems we are trying to deal with.
"The department has been very lazy in dealing with its IT, so we are putting corrective measures in place," Moyane said.
A shocked chairman of the Scopa, Themba Godi, said: "It's like a consultants' paradise."
Moyane said: "The discussions with Sita (state information technology agency) is to create the infrastructure (that would) be functional. We have signed an agreement that this has to be in place next year."
Sita is a government agency that has been created to help state entities develop their IT systems.
But Sita top brass, who were also present during the heated Scopa meeting, confessed to MPs that staff at Correctional Services had been battling for years to send out e-mails, which are meant to provide prompt communication among staff members.
"There was a bottleneck created within the DCS infrastructure . it's been a number of years that the problem (has existed)," Sita account manager Neo Sithole said.
Moyane also said the department has started building internal IT capacity after he hired at least 40 IT network controllers this year.
ANC MP Salam Abram said the government would continue to be milked by private service providers until it started applying "commercial principles".