Pule waga Mabe
The Y2K National Year 2000 Decision Support Centre, the government agency given the task of with tackling the Y2K bug, will close this month after spending seven months compiling reports and audits on what turned out to be the first damp squib of the century.
The centre was established in 1998 with the mandate of investigating and monitoring systems in South Africa for any failure at the turn of the millennium. It has operated on a R2,7-million budget.
According to the support centre’s acting CEO, Tsietsi Maleho, the money was used to raise awareness on the Y2K problem among the general public, to pay staff and to fund “consultative” trips outside South Africa.
Maleho confirmed the minor problems encountered with computers losing date memory and writing 1900 instead of 2000 had not affected the economy.
Several staffers at the Y2K centre claim they were promised work until 2001 and are struggling to find other work after having been “retrenched”.
Maleho says the employees were not retrenched as the state had bought out their contracts.
Maleho this week confirmed that there was little to do after the date changeover at new year. He said since then staff had been paid for auditing and documenting their activities.
Initially, the government had contemplated converting the centre into a virus control centre, but this plan was shelved as it was thought such a unit would duplicate the function of the State Information Technology Agency.
ENDS