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Eastern Cape Y2K readiness
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Speeches and Media Releases
 Road and Public Works

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EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

STATEMENT BY THE MEC FOR ROADS AND PUBLIC WORKS, MR PG MAUALLE

EASTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT IS READY FOR Y2K

18 NOVEMBER 1999

The Eastern Cape provincial government has been engaged in a programme to prepare for Y2K readiness over more than 12 months. At the end of 
August a special Y2K Project Committee was established and the State Information Technology Agency (Pty) Ltd (SITA) was contracted in order 
to assist with finalising their important project.

All the major transversal systems of government are national systems which have been certified as being fully Y2Kcompliant by the 
Department of State Expenditure. These comprise the Personnel and Salaries System (Persal) the Financial Management System (SOCPEN) in 
particular.

These systems have been fully tested, such as the Social Pension printing facilities which are carried out within the province. These were 
tested by the end of June 1999 after the mainframe was shut down and restarted with the date set to December 31 and rolled over to 1 
January 2000. Capturing of data, cheque printing and the production of sample reports was done.

Everything was successfully completed. The main processing is done on the mainframe in Centurion and has also been successfully tested.

The same applies to the Persal and FMS systems, including the revenue collection applications, which have also been tested and were found 
to be fully compliant.

The Y2K Project Committee identified the following departments as being of the highest priority with respect to Y2K readiness : The 
Department of health, the Department of Welfare, the Department of Educations Examinations Section, the Department of Agriculture and Land 
Affairs animal health services and the Office of the Premier.

These departments were visited by SITA personnel and full inventory of equipment, which had already been prepared by the departments, was 
carefully checked. The requirements of the departments for replacement and upgrading was confirmed or amended as applicable depending on 
the findings. All have been checked and the equipment required has been ordered.

The Y2K Project Committee formulated a policy for dealing with the personal computers of all departments. Three categories of equipment 
were identified namely:

* Mission-critical
* Core function
* General Purpose

Mission Critical Environment

These are the systems which may result in death, injury, crisis within the community or political crisis should they not be Y2K ready on 1 
January 2000.

Core Function Environment

A core function environment is any system or equipment that could cause financial loss to the organisation as a result of the equipment not 
being Y2K complaint on 1 January 2000.

General Purpose Environment

A General Purpose Environment is any system or equipment which will not result in financial loss to the organisation if it fails as a 
result of Y2K non-compliance on 1 January 2000.

All equipment which falls into the first two categories has been checked and any non-compliant equipment is either being moved to general-
purpose use, or is being replaced. It should be born in mind that a lot of equipment which may not be fully compliant will still function 
perfectly satisfactorily for normal office correspondence. However, one does not want to take any chances when it comes to mission critical 
and core function uses of equipment.

Some of the equipment which has been ordered and will shortly be installed, in good time before the end of the year is:

* The Department of Health will have 128 PCs for billing systems at hospitals upgraded and will receive 411 new personal computers for 
other mission critical or core function uses.
* Medical equipment with embedded computer processors to the value of R3.6 million is being processed and will shortly be delivered to 
hospitals throughout the province. Specialist teams of experts have been involved in determining these needs and recommending the required 
equipment.
* The Department of Welfare received 109 fully compliant PCs from the national Department of Welfare. These have all been installed.
* The Department of Educations Examinations Section will be receiving 16 PCs and another 14 are being upgraded.
* The Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs has fully compliant equipment in all offices involved in animal disease control and other 
mission critical and core function activities.
* The Office of the Premier, which is responsible for the provincial governments mainframe, networks and file services, has upgraded the 
network software on all file servers, a number of hubs are being replaced, new uninterrupted power supplies are being acquired and memory 
upgrades have been made to be able to cope with the upgraded software.

Some PCs are also being replaced.

With respect to contingency planning, the Department of health has developed extensive plans at the institutional, district, regional and 
provincial level. They have conducted trials to ensure that the institutions can cope with a variety of emergencies, especially power 
failures, but also including water supplies and telephone service interruptions for at least 48 hours, which is the longest period for 
which an interruption of services is expected. These preparations will ensure that all essential services to patients will continue without 
interruption during the possible occurrence of an emergency.

As further measures the Department of health have taken the following steps:

* Personnel throughout the province have received instructions from the office of the Permanent Secretary that paramount importance must be 
given to ensuring Y2K readiness
* Staff will not be allowed to take leave at the end of the year in order to deal with any eventuality may arise
* The Department is following a comprehensive project management methodology and has seconded various of its own specialist personnel to 
the Y2K Project Control Office which has been set up
* The Department had adopted measures to conduct awareness campaigns through the use of several regional work-in-progress meetings with 
representatives from institutions, district and regional offices, including members of the private sector and local authorities.

The province also has a provincial disaster management committee which is involved in general preparations for disaster management. To this 
end an Operations Centre is being established in Bisho to handle the communications and coordination required to deal with any emergency.

Conclusion

This report shows that the provincial government has taken extensive steps to ensure its Y2K readiness. All major systems are already fully 
compliant and all that remains is for a number of personal computers to be received and installed to ensure that any mission critical and 
core function activities are carried out on fully compliant equipment. Some medical equipment with embedded systems are also being upgraded 
or replaced. This will be completed within the next few weeks, in good time before the end of the year. Extensive contingency plans are in 
place to ensue uninterrupted services to patients in hospitals who are the most critical recipients of government services.

For further inquiries contact MEC for Roads and Public Works, Mr PG Masualle at Tel. 040  636 4327



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