Latest news with #digitaloverhaul
Mail & Guardian
10-06-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
KZN MEC Martin Meyer declares war on graft
KZN MEC Martin Meyer. Photo: Supplied KwaZulu-Natal's department of public works and infrastructure is embarking on a radical digital overhaul in a bid to boost the fight against corruption and transform its operations. This was after several contractors raised concerns about the cost of submitting tenders with the department and the failure by other government departments, such as education and transport, to pay invoices within 30 days of submission as stipulated in the Public Finance Management Act. Contractor Thokozani Dhlomo, the owner of Kwande Dinangwe Trading, said he had been forced to turn to loan sharks to keep his business afloat due to government delays with projects and payments. He did not stipulate which departments had been the problem in his case. 'We are getting too much stress due to a lack of funding — that is the problem we face. I ended up taking money from a load shark, a 'mashonisa'. I took R50 000 and, in that 50 000, they charged me 20%. I ended up paying R100 000 in five months, which means I put half, they also put half. So, I ended up like I was under-quoting the job I did and didn't make any profits at all,' Dhlomo said. 'Now they are delaying payment. They can take about four to five months without paying you.' Deli Nyanda, who owns Lake Show Trading, raised the issue of the high costs small businesses incurred just to submit a tender to the She urged Meyer to consider hosting online meetings instead of requiring site visits on every occasion. Meyer, responding to her request, said he would host these meetings with potential contractors online in future. He added that he had shortened the department's six year programme to completely digitise its operations to a six month timeframe. 'This department will be fully digital by the end of this year,' Meyer said. The digital strategy specifically targets systemic corruption in the procurement process by preventing the manipulation of documents. 'What's the number one way that we notice corruption of the bidding processes? Documents or a page — it goes missing, right? You all know that trick,' he said, referring to how officials make pages in tender applications disappear to disqualify certain contractors. 'Suddenly you just get a notice like, 'Oh, page seven wasn't there; we're disqualified.' With digital submissions that's impossible, so it will help us with corruption, but also, especially our smaller contractors who sometimes don't complete forms correctly. 'How many times have your bids been disqualified because you missed one little box somewhere? You didn't tick that one box because there's a lot [of boxes] but, if it's electronic, you try to go to page seven, it says, 'No, you can't go to page seven,' so it will make sure that everything is done as it should be.' To further enhance transparency, Meyer announced plans for a dedicated reporting mechanism. 'We also want to create a whistleblowing line just for our contractors. So, if there's members of our department, officials who are doing wrong things, we can know about it without you being victimised,' he said. 'I often say this to people, 'I like sleeping.' But, if I do bad things or I don't do my job, I can't sleep at night. I stay awake. So, I'd rather make sure we do things right,' Meyer said. The digital initiative is part of his department's broader vision to rebuild trust. 'Not many people in this province were proud of their department of public works and infrastructure. That's the truth. Many things went wrong in this department; we are still going to have problems. I'm not going to say that we are perfect … but we are improving. We need to build a department that the people of KZN can be proud of. 'Contractors are not people standing with begging bowls at the department. You are our equal partners, because to build KZN better, I need builders, and you are the builders.' Meyer acknowledged that slow payments by government departments were a problem and apologised to contractors 'for the years of suffering you've gone through dealing with this department; payment is the biggest issue'. 'I say this over and over again — a contractor that's not paid is a child that goes to bed hungry and I cannot accept that. So, we're fighting with our client departments. We've released hundreds of millions of rands over the last two months. We are up to date and we are now giving you our undertaking,' he said. 'We are working fighting for client departments to make sure that the 30-day payment is honoured because that's not something nice. It's something that people you owe money to demand of you. If you must pay your debtors within three days, we must do the same, and we will try our very, very best.' Meyer added that his department wanted to hire KwaZulu-Natal companies to do work in the province but many local Construction Industry Development Board-registered 'The department recognises the critical challenges facing the construction industry. The built environment has gone through a terrible few years. The contribution of the construction industry to our GDP in the country has dropped by 33% in five years. We're not employing people in the construction industry,' he said. 'It breaks my heart when I visit TVET [technical and vocational education and training] colleges and they tell me of their 'Economically, things are not going well for the province. We should be the richest province in the country because we are bigger and stronger than Gauteng, we have a harbour that they don't have, and we are cheaper and have nicer weather.' Meyer said climate change and infrastructure adaptation were also key concerns. 'Our old ways of building are no longer working. Schools are being washed away. Houses are being washed away. Roads are being washed away because we've been building the same way now for hundreds of years. We need to find better ways,' he said. He said his department was in the process of concluding a memorandum of understanding with the Western Cape department of public works and infrastructure to collaborate on building climate-resilient infrastrucure.
Finextra
07-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
West Brom Building Society picks Deloitte and 10x for digital makeover
West Brom Building Society has called in Deloitte and core banking provider 10x for a digital overhaul. 0 The UK's eighth largest building society has opted for 10x's cloud-based core system, which will let the mutual tailor products using a range of ready-made modules designed to take away unnecessary complexity, cost and risk. Meanwhile, West Brom is also adopting Converge by Deloitte, a composable accelerator designed to help banks and building societies deliver new digital capabilities at pace. The multi-phase programme will see West Brom's digital savings products enhanced, the migration of existing accounts to Converge and the 10x platform, and the unlocking of greater value across its mortgage portfolio. Jonathan Westhoff, CEO, West Brom Building Society, says: 'We chose to work with Deloitte and 10x because they understand what matters to us as a mutual - our customers. Working on this together is an exciting step forward in building the digital service and technology we want for the future." Founded by former Barclays boss Antony Jenkins, 10x is reportedly weighing a sale.
