‘Glitches in IT system’

Almost 18 months after the Polokwane Municipality implemented a new IT finance system, technical glitches, insufficient broadband and report inadequacies remain largely unresolved.
“Will we ever get it right” was the question asked when the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) recently met to discuss the institution’s first quarter performance, as the new system was still found to be wanting in its ability to do what was required in terms of municipal finance reporting.
Even though Chief Finance Officer Nazeem Essa described these as “software teething problems”, saying the municipality is working hard at ironing out the glitches, committee Chairperson MM Tshiri was of the opinion that there was little improvement in terms of financial reporting.
One concern the committee highlighted, was that overall reporting was not supported by portfolios of evidence to support statements.
One after the other, directors reported that even though the new system gave the impression that all indictors were reported on, this had not been the case.
This gave rise to questions about selective reporting, and the omission of non-achievements directors opted not to report.
The role of the internal audit section and the process of quality control also came under scrutiny, as incomplete and incorrect reports were tabled in council, with several being referred back to directorates or portfolio committee.
The committee asked why inconsistencies could not be picked up on during the compiling process, instead of council members picking up the errors during meetings. The system was furthermore described as slow, having poor connectivity, only allowing one person at a time to do capturing and to have limited uploading capacity.
Questions were also raised in terms of backup functions and firewalls, but remain unanswered as the ICT Manager was absent from the meeting.
The committee heard that the system operator was not too familiar with the system itself, and, given the myriad of problems, it has become a race against time in terms of reports submission, to stay within the legal prescripts.
Essa commented that the previous system was problematic in terms of data integrity for revenue estimations and that the new system was chosen in conjunction with National Treasury after the old system’s contract period expired.
The committee commented that it was almost impossible to work efficiently if reports are not submitted to council on time.
Since there was also no consequence management, policies must be reviewed or adopted if there are no prescripts to enable the prescripts of legislation to be followed, he concluded.

Story: Nelie Erasmus