Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma says a report that information and communication technologies company GijimaAST had received a R2-billion settlement with her department was "totally untrue".

"We will reveal more about the settlement in coming days. But I can say that the article in the Cape Times (meaning The Times) is totally untrue," Dlamini Zuma said.

During a parliamentry press briefing on Friday, Dlamini-Zuma , did however not deny that there were settlement discussions underway between her department and GijimaAst .

The Times reported that an amount of R2-billion was bandied about as a possible settlement figure. The report never stated this amount was agreed upon, but that is was being discussed.

Home Affairs director-general Mkhuseli Apleni confirmed that settlement discussions were under way and told The Times that “This thing is at a sensitive stage’.

At a parliamentary press briefing on Friday, Dlamini-Zuma refuted an article that she alleged was carried in the Cape Times. However, the article was in The Times daily newspaper.

The article claimed that JSE-listed GijimaAST was "negotiating a payment of billions from the government - for work it had failed to complete".

Dlamini-Zuma said that the IT system referred to, which is called "Who Am I Online", was intended to revamp the entire IT system of the department.

The original cost for the system was R1.5 billion, but missed deadlines and soaring costs meant that the final bill would have been in the region of R4-billion.

Last year, the Department of Home Affairs cancelled the contract with GijimaAST and then entered into a round of negotiations aiming at a settlement.

She went on to say that her department wanted the matter settled as soon as possible so that it could continue to implement the system upgrades it needed to do.

"Until we have a settlement, we cannot continue with data capturing and begin other projects such as smart (ID) cards," she said.