Video: Skills gap stifles public sector’s IT endeavours

The IT skills shortage in SA’s public sector is further exacerbated by financial constraints, hindering government from competing for the best tech talent in the market.

This was the word from Jabulani Hugh Hlatshwayo, deputy director-general and CIO of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DJCD), speaking to ITWeb On The Road on the side-lines of the ITWeb GRC Conference 2025, held last week in Bryanston, Johannesburg.

Hlatshwayo discussed the importance of IT governance, risk and compliance in the public sector, highlighting how the lack of skills within some departments may have an adverse impact on the organisation’s performance.

This often results in heavy reliance on outsourcing managed service providers and hiring of junior IT specialists, he noted.

“Governance and risk within the IT space is very important, especially when it comes to managing your third-party IT service providers, vendors and suppliers.We have serious capacitation challenges in terms of IT skills resources, and therefore, it means we have to supplement the resource capacity through an IT service provider. Government, in general, depends highly on these service providers.”

Discussing IT roles where the DJCD has had the highest demand, he noted that senior IT solutions architects, senior database administrators, Linux specialists and cyber security specialists are often the most highly sought-after and also command a competitive remuneration package in the market.

The public sector often faces difficulty in attracting IT specialists because candidates expect to be remunerated at a higher market rate, which only private sector firms can afford. This makes it difficult for the public sector to compete for skills in this space, he added.

“IT specialists are more attracted to the private sector than the public sector, mainly due to salaries and also the specific hiring structure in government, which is based on the different levels of the designations; for instance, titles such as deputy director, chief director and so forth.

“[This is] unlike the private sector, where the positions focus on their field of specialisation, such as ‘security specialist or database administrator’. In some private organisations, that expertise goes to executive level.

“What is important to the specialists, is for them to be remunerated according to the value they bring into the organisation. Sometimes within the government space, you find that a director [in IT] may not be remunerated according to that specific level in the private sector.

“There are different challenges facing government in this area and it’s nearly impossible to match some of the market rates that are out there. So, we mainly attract junior IT specialists and oftentimes you find that when they get more skilled, they leave the departments.

“This is something that has to be reviewed from the Department of Public Service and Administration side, because it makes us more reliant on the IT service providers that would bring those specialists into our environment.”

The 2024 Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa ICT Skills Survey, conducted in partnership with Africa Analysis, found South African employers report significant skills shortages in the fields of information security / cyber security, artificial intelligence / machine learning, big data / data science, data storage, DevOps and systems design, among others.

Jabulani Hugh Hlatshwayo, deputy director-general and CIO of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. (Photograph: Lesley Moyo)

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The public sector, added Hlatshwayo, is often forced to strike a balance between relying on junior IT specialists and IT service providers, with the latter charging huge service fees.

“Unfortunately, IT services are quite costly. And you cannot avoid that because most of these services are imported from the US, such as Microsoft, and their fee structure happens on dollar ratings and so forth. Even the private sector is struggling with sourcing the right IT skills.”

He emphasised the importance of investing in upskilling and reskilling initiatives to retain talent, increase productivity and build a sustainable workforce in the public sector.

“We need to pull up our socks in terms of reskilling and more programmes should be put in place in terms of IT upskilling. We also need to be intentional about it from junior level.

“There has to be a paradigm shift. We need to build our skills from grassroots-level, in primary schools, and start building more tech-focused colleges and technology-focused universities. We also need to channel more school pupils towards IT-focused careers,” he concluded.