WHY IT PROJECTS FAIL BY ZIMBABWE INTOSAI EDP COMMITTEE PERFOMANCE AUDIT SEMINAR, SLOVENIA 14-16 MAY 2001
WHY IT PROJECTS FAIL The Zimbabwean Government is computerised in almost all areas of its operation although the degrees of computerisation differ. The computerisation ranges from administrative and accounting systems to technical systems relating to the objectives of each Ministry. The procurement method for Government IT has not changed much over the years. The method for procuring is similar to the In-house and consultants which was implemented by United Kingdom in the 1980s. The Government puts out tenders for the supply of hardware and software. In most cases the Government prefers to deal with one supplier who can then subcontract some of the aspects. It does not appear as if the Government is ready to move to other forms of procuring IT. In the 1980s the Government introduced a centralised system to IT procurement. There existed a Committee for Coordinating the Acquisition of Computer Technology which was responsible for approving all IT procurement. The Committee issued guidelines to be followed when developing IT systems. When all departments started computerising, the Committee was inundated with large volumes of requests for approvals. The Committee just fizzled out in the early 1990s and departments just followed the normal procurement procedures. However they could contact, the Central Computing Service and get advice. The government has now as a result got all sorts of IT software and hardware which are not coordinated. Another way of procuring IT has been through Donor Funded projects. The IT equipment and software is given to Government as donations. In some cases the donors prefer to purchase IT from their countries of origin. In that situation, the procurement procedures of the Donor country are the ones that are followed. One disadvantage of following this route is that in some cases, there are no local computer companies who can maintain the IT hardware and software and in some cases the spares are not available.
Currently the Government has appointed a senior official as a National IT coordinator. One of the duties of the coordinator would be to come up with an IT Policy. This would provide guidelines on IT procurement. The Zimbabwe Government has experienced project failures for various reasons. The Public Financial Management System (PFMS) which is yet to be finalized has experienced cost and time over-runs and adversely affected the timeous production of reliable financial statements. The PFMS is the accounting system for the whole Government.This was mostly due to problems relating to project management and failure to follow appropriate standards in systems development. A parallel run was only effected for two ministries for period of two months. As a result wrong balances were carried over from the old to the new systems. The printout for December 2000 which is used for the preparation of financial statements for the year 2000 contained numerous errors and could not be produced on time. This has adversely affected the scheduling of work for the Comptroller and Auditor- General s office. Until the end of March 2001, the final printout had not been run. The project has also experienced time and cost overruns. The rolling out of the system to all Ministries is lagging behind because of problems relating to training staff and budgetary constraints in relation to the purchase of hardware. The planning and information to users was not adequate. The cost of hardware is to be shared between Ministry of Finance and the Ministries but it was not clear on the specific items to be financed by each party. Zimbabwe is experiencing severe foreign currency shortages and this is expected to further delay the procurement of hardware. An audit in one of the pilot ministries revealed that user involvement of users was not adequate. A lot of problems have surfaced and this is attributed to inadequate testing. Creditors could not be paid for three months because of problems with the payment module. Some transactions remained unprocessed for more than six months. The other IT project which has experienced failures in many respects is a Government financial Institution. The problems mainly emanated from poor project management.
The feasibility study was not done in a well managed manner as users were not involved. The Director Finance and Director IT did the feasibility study. The supplier who was awarded the contract lacked the skills locally to effectively customize the software and they lacked banking knowledge. The supplier changed their project management three times in one year. The failure to control the work by the suppliers resulted in excess expenditure being incurred on the project. Audit carried out revealed that a number of key modules were not operational because of inadequate consultation with the users during the specification of user requirements and testing phases. Some of the modules like the dormant account is required by legislation. It is a requirement that dormant accounts should be transferred to the Master of the High Court. However this was not possible because the system could not tell if the account was dormant or not. The bank experienced missing and duplicate transactions on a monthly basis. The transactions on a monthly basis. The transactions could either be deposits, withdrawals or stop orders. This makes the bank susceptible to fraud. There are very few examples of project successes in my country. In most cases these are very small projects. The main characteristic of these projects are that by software was off the shelf and did not involve going through the whole Systems Development Life Cycle. Little customisation to suit the specific conditions was either not required or minimal. Experience across departments is shared through seminars which are held for top officials of all Government Ministries throughout the year in addition Heads of departments hold regular meetings at least once a month to discuss common issues and share experiences. Audit reports have certainly resulted in better awareness and understanding of issues and problems in audited bodies. Issues raised in audit reports are thoroughly discussed with the auditees and a formal exit meeting is held. The auditees comments are included in the report.
My SAI reviews projects as IT projects. Currently these audits are carried out by a separate IT section. However there are plans to have IT auditors in all sections so that IT audits can be integrated with financial and performance audits. The office has got a standard audit programme for review of IT projects. The programme covers the following areas:- - Entity-Wide Security - Access Control - System Development And Change Control - Application Development and Change Control - Segregation of Duties The issues we find most difficult to audit are application controls because you need more knowledge about the software. To improve the success of Government projects the SAI sits on Steering Committee meetings as an observer and can offer advice. The SAI is also availed with copies Statement of User Requirements and can submit comments especially on control issues. For large systems, the SAI also undertakes audits of Systems Under Development.