Department of Defence Annual Report 2008-2009

| Department of Defence |
| Programme 7: General Support |
One Force” concept takes effect within the CMIS
Division (SA Army Signals Formation). The use of
Reserves during CMIS support to Operations has
increased, and the support from 11 Field Postal Unit
contributed to the success of Project RESILIENCE.
A total of 150 Reserves were deployed mainly in
the Registries and Postal Services environment
in the DOD, which gave further substance to the
One-Force concept. An urgent need for Reserve
force members with a variety of skills such as IT
specialists, electronic specialists, electrical specialists
and post ofce specialists in the Signal Formation
Reserves has, however, developed but effective steps
are hampered by the extended duration of courses to
make any recruitment drive viable. Distant learning,
decentralised training and Recognition of Prior
Learning are issues that are being investigated.
The outow of scarce skills as in the rest of the
SANDF has continued unabated in the CMIS
Division since the last report. A concerted effort
has been made to recruit for the vacant positions,
specically technical skills, specialised skills and
senior experienced ofcers. The continued exodus
of personnel hampered the effective delivery of
services in all ICT environments. Mitigation actions
that were introduced, included the utilisation of
Reserves where possible and within affordable
terms, as well as the appointment of PSAPS in the
Records Management environment.
The DOD still makes use of a Paper-Based Archive
System with about 6 million les that are managed
manually. This system is slow, laborious and
cumbersome, especially where requests for access
to information/records in terms of the Promotion
of Access to Information Act (Act 2 of 2000) are
concerned. An Electronic Content Management
project was registered, and although costly, will
enable all “information” to be made available
electronically in future. The manual system will
however, still have to continue for some time.
As was reported in the previous year, the moratorium
on the destruction of records still remained in force.
This prevented the management of a formal appraisal
and systematic disposal programme for records in the
DOD, with the result that an inordinate amount of
resources (available storage space was already lled
in February 2008) was spent on the administration
and storage of about 28 000 linear metres (2,8 linear
kilometres) ephemeral records. A collective request
by all the security-related departments have been
forwarded to Cabinet via the Security Cluster for the
lifting of this moratorium.
With regard to funding within the ICT industry, the
annual ination rate proved to be higher than the
Consumer Price Index, which entailed that there
were less funds to pay contractors who maintained
information and communications technology
systems for the DOD. Furthermore, most of the
equipment used in the ICT industry is imported,
and the weakened exchange rate of the rand reduced
buying power.
During the past year, the CMIS Division managed
the business of Information and Communication
Systems by providing resources and capabilities
as a service to the DOD. This was done through
identifying the services that contribute to the
DOD’s business goals, determining the service levels
required, meeting those goals, costing the services,
the business impact of a problem with those services,
and the ownership of assets required to deliver the
required services. In doing so, the CMIS Division
succeeded in managing and developing information
communications systems that supported the linefunction
of the DOD and, which formed the
core with which all other supporting systems were
integrated.
Purpose of the Programme
The General Support Programme provides general
support capabilities and services to the Department.
The Command and Management Information
Services is a subprogramme of the General Support
Programme.
Measurable Objectives
The Command and Management Information
Services Subprogramme contributes to the
General Support Programme purpose by providing
centralised command and management information
system capabilities, and ensuring that the Mainframe
service is available 98% of the time, and the Wide
Area Network (WAN) 95% of the time.
Output Detail
Table 9.2 below provides detail on the General
Support Programme Output on all output,
performance measures and targets specied in the
DOD’s Strategic Business Plan FY 2008/09.
Annual Report FY 2008 - 2009 134