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Gijima jobs hit by state dispute

Johannesburg - Following the loss of a R3.9bn contract from the department of home affairs due to alleged non-performance, GijimaAst is facing a fresh battle - to keep morale among its 4 000 employees high as it starts retrenching.

"These developments are disruptive to us. In between doing our work we now need to look for new jobs," an employee said on Friday.

The employee said GijimaAst had initiated the retrenchment process and workers who were affected would need to leave the company by the end of July.

Jonas Bogoshi, GijimaAst CEO, said the retrenchments were a realignment of the business to reflect the effect of the recession on the company, and its new focus.

Until two weeks ago, the company was hard at work on the home affairs contract to build a paperless, high-tech security system to process identification, work permits, visas and other international travel documents faster. The ultimate goal was to limit the chances of manipulation of the process by people.

At a high-level meeting in Pretoria two months ago the two sides sat around a table. Key representatives for Gijima: executive chairperson Robert Gumede and Bogoshi. Key representatives for home affairs: minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and director-general Mkuseli Apleni.

With the World Cup looming, the meeting was tense.

Gijima promised to deliver a visa processing system at 34 points of entry into the country.

It also promised to deliver a visa application system in nine missions in countries that were expected to provide the most visitors to South Africa.

This was scheduled to be done by the beginning of next month.

At a second meeting later in February the wheels came off. A source close to the department said Gijima told the minister it would be able to deliver its systems to only 12 points of entry and three foreign missions.

A source with knowledge of the negotiations said that decision was mutual, because the 12 points of entry covered 93% of points of entry and 87% of missions expected at the Cup.

After this, Dlamini-Zuma approached cabinet to seek permission to get out of the GijimaAst contract or declare it invalid.

Bogoshi did not comment about the cancellation, pending its legal challenge to enforce the contract which contributed 15% of GijimaAst's revenue.

He said the home affairs contract was managed by a team of 160 highly skilled workers, some of whom were contract employees.

He said some of the company's full-time employees could be absorbed into other parts of the business should GijimaAst lose the contract.

The source added that the main reason the contract did not run smoothly was that the department was ill prepared to handle a project of such magnitude.

The department's premises were also not purpose-built for the main operating platform, and it lacked the staff to effectively monitor and implement systems with Gijima, the source said.

State lawyers are negotiating for the department, while GijimaAst has engaged its own lawyers, Brian Kahn Attorneys.

Bogoshi and some of his top executives have had a busy week talking to their shareholders, partners and major clients to update them on the process and placate them.

He remained upbeat about the prospects for the business.

"We believe the industry will be flat this year and start to grow from next year. We have a healthy pipeline of projects that will carry us through," he said, adding that 90 of the top 100 JSE companies were GijimaAst's clients.

Home affairs has asked the SA Revenue Service (Sars) to take over that part of the project which relates to the facilitation of tourists' entry into South Africa for the World Cup starting in June.

Sars has appointed 10 IT firms to deliver on the project.

- City Press

 
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