The Portfolio Committee on Police this week heard of plans on how the South African Police Services (SAPS) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) intend to support each other to address problems associated with ínformation technology and assist in the efficient running of the country’s police stations.
According to SAPS Major-General Mr Bonginkosi Ngubane, the department is on track to achieve several targets as per the annual strategic plan. “For example, we have been able to deploy the 491 planned Mobile Connectivity Devices (MCD) for tracing stolen vehicles, firearms and missing or wanted persons. We are also on course with achieving the Fingerprint Exhibit Imaging target.
The implementation process in this regard has been completed, we are just finalising the training of officials, and this will be concluded before the end of the financial year,” Mr Ngubane said.
The progress report also indicates that SAPS is on course with the deployment of a pilot site in Pretoria for the Forensic Science Laboratory Integrated Case Management System. This must provide an automated solution for daily activities and optimise the chain-of-custody process. The Police Service also reported that the e-Docket system will be rolled out from December.
The Committee Chairperson, Ms Sindisiwe Chikunga indicated that this week’s meeting was supposed to have been held in July. At a meeting in April it appeared that SAPS and SITA were not co-coordinating their work and the committee decided to give the two entities enough time “to get their house in order.”
“In April this year, the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between the two were not yet signed. We found that disturbing and we hope it is resolved swiftly,” added Ms Chikunga.
The acting Chairperson of the SITA Board, Ms Febe Potgieter - Gqubule said the review would be completed by the end of this month, after which the SLAs would be signed. “Following the April meeting with the Portfolio Committee, we had two joint sessions with SAPS and agreed to review the business agreement to ensure proper alignment.”
"We cautiously appreciate the turnaround strategy presented by SITA and the progress report presented by SAPS, but we would like more information on the projected cost of each of the 22 projects presented and how much has been spent to date. The R3.6 billion allocated to the SAPS sub-programme responsible for Technology Management Services is a great deal of money and we need to know exactly how the department intends to spend it,” Ms Chikunga said.
The department has been given until 15 October to provide the required costs breakdown and respond to other questions that could not be considered because of time constraints.
Enquiries:
Temba Gubula
Tel: 021 403 8307
Fax: 021 403 3931
Cell: 078 735 8809
E-mail: tgubula@parliament.gov.za
Committee demands details of South African Police Services information technology targets
