27 September 1999
The Y2K Remediation Programme at local government is producing heartening results. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on 19 May 1999 by government, the private sector and state owned and partially state owned enterprises launched the programme. This produced a partnership unprecedented in this country, resulting in the establishment of a Section 21 company, M2K, whose task it is to assist the Department of Constitutional Development in managing the Y2K remediation programme at local government level.
The Department of Constitutional Development spearheads this project. A co-ordinated programme is in place which has the full cooperation of all stakeholders. The main goal of all parties is to minimize risk with regards to the uninterrupted supply of critical services at local government level.
Tenders have been issued for the three phases of the project, namely inventory and assessment; remediation, correction, and audit and review.
The inventory has been built on statistics from 812 of the total 843 municipalities. The remaining 31 municipalities do not deliver mission critical services and are thus not included.
The inventory assessment only analyses mission critical services based on prioritization: electrical systems are the first priority, and then water, sewerage, financial, payroll and traffic control systems. These areas have been further broken down into different components with electrical protection, control and metering systems receiving the highest priority.
M2K has almost completed the assessments and scopes of work per municipality. This information is officially conveyed to the Chief Executive Officer of each municipality to indicate the plan of action.
Added to this, provincial task teams have prioritized municipalities based on population density, key commercial areas, border posts, telecommunication centers, etc, to ensure that critical areas are dealt with as a priority.
Municipalities provide monthly Y2K readiness status reports to the M2K provincial project managers who detail progress within the six mission critical areas. "Readiness" measures progress towards completion of preparations for Y2K that includes checking systems, fixing problems and testing. To date, results that have been analysed by the National Monitoring Mechanism Committee, a sub-committee of the NYTT, indicate the following readiness levels:
Eastern Cape 72%
Free State 78%
Gauteng 71%
Kwa Zulu Natal 70%
Mpumalanga 72%
North West Province 58%
Northern Province 77%
Northern Cape 62%
Western Cape 65%
Since the compilation of these statistics, remediation has already commenced in all provinces. The state of readiness at municipal level is thus improving on a daily basis.
The Way Ahead
Based on the scope of work, each municipality is communicating any additional budget requirements to the Department of Constitutional Development. Where there is a confirmed shortfall against a municipality's own budget, National Government has undertaken to assist in providing the necessary funds to effect remediation to ensure Y2K compliance of mission critical systems.
Once funding is finalized, successful tenders (correction tender T4 898 KA) will be allocated correction tasks in the second phase.
The CEO of each municipality remains responsibility for their Y2K Projects and they must sign off each phase as completed.
Initial analysis of information received from municipalities indicates that approximately R400 million has been budgeted for year 2000 projects and approximately R170 million has been spent to date.
The third and final phase, Audit and Review, will begin in October, Adjudication of responses to Tender RT 901 KA will be completed by the end of September and successful companies will be sent to municipalities who have completed their Y2K remediation projects. This phase will run concurrently with the correction phase.
The audit phase ensures that all work has been tested, signed off and the necessary official documents are in place. To date, the project has been most successful with a great deal of cooperation between government, the private sector and state owned and partially state owned enterprises.
In regard to contingency for all national sectors (power, water and sewerage, health services, communication/telecommunications, transportation, emergency services, finance and financial markets, revenue and tax collection systems, state expenditure systems, welfare services the State Information Technology Agency, food security, home affairs, public works, interdependence and interaction between SADC countries, provincial and local authorities), planning will be complete by the end of September.
Plans are also in place for Y2K operations rooms at provincial and national level, and contact details for these are to be published in October.
For more information please contact Fred Barron on 082 456 7545
Issued by the Ministry for Provincial and Local Government