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The Eastern Cape provincial government has withdrawn its ICT strategic plan after it was found to have been plagiarized from an international government document.
The Daily Dispatch reported that parts of the “Framework and Provincial Strategic Plan for Digital Transformation 2020 – 2025” were copied almost word for word from a 2015 document.
The digital transformation plan, which was signed by Eastern Cape Prime Minister Oscar Mabuyane and approved by the provincial cabinet, was plagiarized from an ICT strategy document drafted by Brendan Howlin five years ago.
Mabuyane’s spokesman, Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, confirmed the plagiarism and promised that action will be taken against those responsible.
“The approval of the Eastern Cape provincial government’s ICT strategy by the executive council has been withdrawn following confirmation that parts of the strategy document from the prologue to other sections of the document were plagiarized,” he said.
“The only part of the document that was not plagiarized was the implementation plan, the projects to be implemented and the location of the projects to be implemented as part of the strategy.”
He said that when Mabuyane became aware of the plagiarism, he ordered an investigation to investigate the matter and the circumstances that led to the plagiarism of the content of another document.
“When the plagiarism was confirmed by the investigation, on the instruction of Prime Minister Mabuyane, the strategy document was withdrawn from all government institutions where it was presented as required by the government operating and reporting systems.”
He added that disciplinary measures will be taken against the people who plagiarized the document “because plagiarism is an act of misconduct and dishonesty.”
Previously it happened with the LLU plan
This is not the first time that government ICT documents have been plagiarized and presented as an original plan.
Much of South Africa’s Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) report was drawn from a 2001 European Commission document without allocating credit.
The report was commissioned by the late Communications Minister, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, to guide the country’s decisions and policies related to the unbundling of the local circuit.
ITWeb revealed that the case studies in the report “are the same as those in the LLU report developed six years ago for the European Commission.”
“It is pure plagiarism. They haven’t even bothered to update the case studies, even though they are six years old now, ”ITWeb quoted a source.
LLU committee chair Tshilidzi Marwala acknowledged that the case study material was copied entirely from the 2001 European Commission document without any credit.
However, instead of withdrawing the document, it dismissed it as a “minor” issue that does not undermine the report and the report’s recommendations.
Marwala, who is now the rector of the University of Johannesburg, called it “an honest mistake” that was corrected as soon as they found out.
Local loop unbundling did not ultimately occur in South Africa, which Marwala described as “disappointing.”
Now read: LLU: a missed opportunity
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