The Citizen reports that the Chief Director: Infrastructure Management for Information Systems (IS) at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) 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 a SITA invoice 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. “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. The failure of a senior manager to oversee and execute on these functions is a serious misconduct, and cannot be tolerated,” the DHA indicated. 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 was a serious and punishable offence.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at The Citizen

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