Pretoria - Parastatals Eskom and Transnet have concluded the sale of Information-Technology (IT) services provider arivia.kom to a Midrand-based company.
The signed agreement will see T-Systems South Africa acquiring 100 percent of the shareholding in arivia.kom which was previously owned by the two state-owned enterprises.
The company will also simultaneously take over the IT service contracts for both Eskom and Transnet for a contract period of five years.
Currently Eskom and Transnet are arivia.kom's largest customers, the companies said on Thursday.
The contract, which starts in January 2010, will deliver substantial cost and business efficiencies to the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) through economies of scale and the transfer of core processing and support activities required to run Eskom and Transnet's IT environments.
"For Eskom, this is an important milestone, a step in the right direction. In these challenging times of our company's history, it is important for Eskom to focus on its core business," said Eskom's Corporate Services Division Managing Director Dr Steve Lennon.
The SOEs in 2006 embarked on a restructuring process of disposing non-core business which included their respective shareholdings in arivia.kom
"We are pleased to finally conclude the deal with T-Systems", said Transnet's acting Chief Executive, Chris Wells.
"Transnet's focus is to obtain a more cost-effective service, improved infrastructure availability and stability and enhanced end-user experience," said Wells.
