Sharp cuts in the City of Cape Town`s IT budget will seriously hamper its ability to retain staff, perform routine maintenance and threaten its place as the country`s most ICT-centric city, says CIO Nirvesh Sooful.
According to Sooful, the 2007 capital budget was slashed from a requested R75 million to R30 million, in what he describes as an "arbitrary manner".
He says the city, which has the most extensive enterprise resource management system of any municipality, needs to allocate more funds to retain the skills it developed during the implementation of the SAP system and to ensure all services offered to ratepayers continue to function.
"There is a continuing need for maintaining the systems. We have not had a proper upgrade for about six years, apart from the SAP implementation. Some of the infrastructure is getting creaky and there is a continuing need to expand storage," he says.
Sooful says the city sends and receives 10 million e-mails a month and IT has become so core to the functioning of all the city`s departments that some send staff home when the computers go offline.
No understanding
"The decision to slash the IT budgets was really made by people who do not understand the consequences of the action," he says.
Sooful`s department manages R700 million worth of ICT assets on behalf of the city and it has lost 40% of its staff over the past three years, largely due to them finding better paid jobs elsewhere.
"We have always known we could not compete directly with the private sector in terms of salaries. However, many of our staff understood they were making a difference to the lives of people within the community. For instance, the increased revenue collection created by the SAP implementation means that better social services are delivered," he says.
Sooful says Cape Town executive mayor Helen Zille has indicated she is pro-technology and what it can do to make a difference, but that a formal presentation to her on possible future ICT-related projects had still to be done.
Sooful also wants to expand on a "techno-nucleus" that has been incubating within his department. This will explore and develop ICT solutions outside the normal government bureaucracy.
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