Legal practitioners have lamented a ‘technical glitch’ that resulted in the government printers not confirming with customers when an advert will appear for publication in the Government Gazette, says a Business Day report.

The 'glitch' made it impossible for customers and legal practitioners to co-ordinate the placement of debtors or creditors notices in newspapers with the publication in the Government Gazette.

‘This is not the first time this is happening,’ said labour lawyer Michael Bagraim. ‘I think it’s the fourth or fifth time we’ve had this in the last two years.’

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi reportedly told Business Day that the internal IT system had experienced a technical glitch that led to the notices not being published.

‘We have a chief information officer who is supposed to be an expert in IT, but we had to call people from outside (the department) to come and resolve the issue,’ he said.

‘As to whether that technical glitch was out of his depth is something that we will have to investigate.’

Motsoaledi said the matter had since been resolved and the department was working around the clock to make sure that any backlog was cleared.

Bagraim said he could not understand why the 'technical glitch' occurred in the first place.

‘They keep saying these are technical glitches, but what does that mean? This is all about printing, there is no such thing as a technical glitch. I think it’s just incompetence,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s human error. If legal notices are not printed then everything comes to a standstill. In terms of the law, it has to be printed.’

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