Home Affairs chief director axed for dodgy dealings

The Department of Home Affairs’ Chief Director: Infrastructure Management for Information Systems (IS) has been dismissed for gross negligence and gross dereliction of duty.

According to a statement issued by the department, Simphiwe Hlophe was in charge of Information Technology (IT) aspects that involve network outages (offline), system downtime and IT capability which affect the department’s overall performance.

The statement also revealed that Hlophe certified an invoice of SITA that included services not rendered, and also authorised other expenditure against a credit note issued by SITA and procured routers and switches that remained in storage, and were not deployed after he said they were.

“The sanction was pronounced and served to Mr Hlophe on 19 August 2022. The Department has been frequently experiencing system instability which has negatively impacted on frontline service delivery.

“The Department’s service delivery charter depends on a stable IT infrastructure platform, networks and operating systems, to effectively perform its functions, rendering sustainable and reliable service capability to our frontline offices.

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“The failure of a senior manager to oversee and execute on these functions is a serious misconduct, and cannot be tolerated,” the statement reads.

Home Affairs also made it known that senior managers in the department must be aware of the consequences of certifying unauthorised payments between the department and third parties as this is a serious and punishable offence.

Finance Management Act and the onus remains with the senior manager to ensure that payments certified are in lieu of services rendered, fully, and that they serve the interests of the Department.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: “We are on a firm path towards clean governance and improved service delivery. The responsibility for the performance of the Department rests with all employees. Accountability for the performance of assigned responsibilities is absolutely critical.”