The South African government faces a variety of issues in delivering on its mandate to provide services to citizens efficiently. Many of these issues could be overcome through the more effective use of ICT, but this in itself poses further challenges. This has led to a call for the appointment of an ICT Minister at provincial level to oversee all ICT related issues faced by the South African Local Government.
According to ForgeAhead, an independent ICT research and consulting company, one of the biggest challenges facing Local Government is the issue of budgetary constraints. "Our research shows that in general senior managers lack the required confidence in ICTs` ability to improve service delivery due to the difficulties faced in showing a direct return on investment," says Jane Mosebi, managing director of ForgeAhead. "According to our respondents, this is one of the reasons why they are not receiving adequate budget allocation for ICT implementation."
Speaking at a workshop in Limpopo with the Department of Local and Provincial Government (DPLG), ForgeAhead suggested that part of the role a provincial ICT Minister would play, is that of lobbying for adequate funding to ensure that there is budget allocation for the implementation of ICTs. "Particularly at a Provincial and Local Government level a provincial ICT Minister would for example ensure that the Provinces and Municipalities get the funding they need to implement ICT to improve service delivery," says Mosebi. "We know that there are currently talks around this issue."
Mosebi further explains that as it stands, there is no single point of contact for the resolution of ICT issues and this results in insufficient ICT budgets. "When there is one point of contact lobbying for ICT budget at a national level, then we will be able to solve most of the provincial ICT challenges we are experiencing and further address issues about the budget allocated to local and provincial government," she says.
ForgeAhead`s recent ICT in Government Research shows that the ICT budget allocated for the various Limpopo Provincial Departments this financial year 2005/2006 ranges from R1 700 000 to R96 000 000. ICT projects that have been implemented include the development of the master systems plan (MSP), server consolidation and the implementation of the portal, intranet, provincial wide area network (WAN) and systems integration support plans.
William Nkuna, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Department of Provincial and Local Government (the dplg), says only about 20% of municipalities have implemented MSPs. He says that the challenge the dplg is facing with municipalities is that they have not clearly identified the role of SITA and therefore rely on vendors to provide solutions for them, thus spending more money than required. "There is a great need to establish the core of ICT skills to assist municipalities with ICT strategies and programmes- and that`s a role played by SITA and the ICT forum, with the help of the dplg."
ForgeAhead has now been challenged with the task of assisting the provinces by reviewing their Provincial Growth and Development and their Human Development Strategies to see what ICT interventions and skills they require. "The information we will be able to provide the provinces through this assessment will provide them with the knowledge they require to lobby for additional funds for ICT development," concludes Mosebi.
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