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Status on the current Capital Equipment in
the Department of Foreign Affairs NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR
WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO: 412 N637E PUBLISHED IN INTERNAL
QUESTION PAPER NO 9 DATED 16 MARCH 2007 MR DHM GIBSON (DA) TO ASK
THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: With regard to every type of capital
equipment which her department or any of the entities that she presides over are
responsible, to provide; a) what is the backlog in respect of the provisioning
of new capital equipment in terms of
i) the number of equipment units; and
ii)
rand value; and
b) what is the backlog in respect of capital equipment
maintenance in terms of
i) the type of maintenance required; and
ii) rand
value? REPLY: Asset management: i) there is currently
no backlog in the supply of capital equipment. The Department currently
supply furniture and equipment on a needs basis as and when required. In each
instance an assessment is done whether the items are not already available in
the Department before the decision is made to purchase such items.
The reason
being that in the new Head Office Building all furniture and equipment will be
provided in terms of the PPP agreement. Furthermore, the Department does not want
to end up with too much surplus furniture and equipment. This is also the reason
why there are some units that may only have the most basic needs available in
their units, which is the only possible backlog in the supply of such goods. All
our missions have at least the basic furniture and equipment that they need to
function as a mission. Missions plan replacements and new acquisitions in terms
of available budget allocations. No serious backlog exists in the supply of furniture
and equipment to missions that would render them incapable of delivering on their
mandate.
ii) rand value:
No value.
b) what is the backlog
in respect of capital equipment maintenance in terms of
i) the type of
maintenance required?
There is currently no backlog in respect of the
maintenance of capital equipment. The policy of the Department is to adhere
to the manufacturer's recommended
maintenance schedules for equipment such
as photocopiers and labour saving
devices, air conditioning units, heating
and cooling plants, generators, vehicles, etc.
As such it is incumbent
on the end-users to ensure that plans are in place to service
such equipment
as and when required. The end-users must compile a plan to
accomplish this
and include it in their budgets inputs.
ii) rand value?
No value.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) EQUIPMENT
a)
i) ICT Capital equipment for 124 sites + 3500 users; Assets bought jointly
with the Department of Home Affairs who contributed R45m:
ii) Voice over
IP Equipment (Routers; Switches; IP telephones and Security Devices)
R112m
including installations at all offices.
Hewlett Packard (HP) Servers - R46m
HP Leased equipment (Desk tops; Laptops & Printers) R31m
b) Equipment
has been delivered to all 124 sites - South African sites and International
Missions /embassies and 60 sites have been installed. i) ICT equipment maintenance
for 124 sites +3500 users
ii) R49 m, covering the following
- Bandwidth
operations
- Software Licences
- Maintenance
- Service Level Agreement
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