Home Affairs denies GijimaAST payout

Cape Town - Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Friday said a report that ICT firm GijimaAST had received a R2bn settlement with her department was "totally untrue".

At a parliamentary press briefing, Dlamini-Zuma refuted an article in The Times newspaper which claimed that JSE-listed GijimaAST was "negotiating a payment of billions from the government - for work it had failed to complete".

Dlamini-Zuma said that the IT system referred to, which is called Who Am I Online, was intended to revamp the entire IT system of the department.

The original cost for the system was R1.5bn, but missed deadlines and soaring costs meant that the final bill would have been in the region of R4bn.

Last year, the department of home affairs cancelled the contract with GijimaAST and then entered into a round of negotiations aiming at a settlement.

"We will reveal more about the settlement in coming days. But I can say that the article ... is totally untrue," Dlamini-Zuma said.

She said that her department wanted the matter settled as soon as possible so that it could continue to implement the system upgrades it needed.

"Until we have a settlement, we cannot continue with data capturing and begin other projects such as smart (ID) cards," she said.

GijimaAST's share price was at 70 cents on the JSE in Friday afternoon trade from a previous close of 72c, a fall of 2.78%.