IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

"To the best of our knowledge, we've created the first isiXhosa Web portal in the world - this is an important milestone for the Western Cape," says Western Cape minister for finance and economic development Ebrahim Rasool.

With this in mind, the Western Cape government is moving from a neutral to an aggressive phased open source approach.

At a seminar hosted by the Cape IT Initiative (CITI) last week, entitled "FOSS: An Opportunity to Rise to Fame or Are We being Misguided?", delegates heard how the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government were looking to phase in open source as well as skill up their staff in OS support.

The regional government says the Cape Gateway project is the first of its kind in the country. It includes a walk-in centre where members of the public can have free Internet access to various provincial government sites and a call centre outsourced to British-owned firm Dialogue.

The results of this study, entitled ‘The Western Cape ICT in Government Report', were revealed at the Western Cape Local Government Information and Communication Technology Committee (LOGICT): ICT in Government Provincial Conference last week.

Yes, the services might not be much good as yet, but they’re popping up more and more aren’t they? Providers left and right are creeping right out of the woodwork and launching uncapped 384K connectivity for R400 a month, ISPs who still cling to monthly limits are selling in the R30 to R70 per GB range and falling, and the actual access element is about to get a whole lot faster as fiber-to-the-kerb projects enter their final stages. It’s a revolutionary time for the Internet in SA.

Nonetheless, government now wants to move at least 100 services online, starting with six that affect the poor the most.

Williams addressed an industry briefing on the Department of Public Services and Administration‘s (DPSA's) next-generation e-government platform, in Johannesburg, yesterday.

The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) will miss the deadline for the final implementation of the first phase of its e-Cipro project.

According to Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe, the operation of the new workflow and document management system has been “slightly delayed” and will not be fully implemented this year.

It aims to use the Gateway Project (e-government), to deliver optimise service delivery, public participation and governance through technology such as the Internet and new media.

Topping the chamber’s list, however, corruption remains the number one issue facing ICT and business in South Africa.

“If we cannot turn this around, we will continue to see large capital expenditure in ICT being compromised,” the chamber told BusinessTech.

However, unlike even the biggest of companies, governments have literally millions - sometimes hundreds of millions - of customers, since every citizen is, in effect, a customer to whom government is obliged to deliver services.

According to a report released this week at the Internet Governance Forum, South Africa has fallen a long way in the African rankings since 2000, when it had 2.4 million subscribers representing 53 percent of internet users across the continent.

When it comes to buzzwords and empty promises, “smart cities” and “bullet trains” are favourites among South African politicians.

During his 2019 state of the nation address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said he dreamt of a South Africa with an entirely new city with skyscrapers, schools, universities, hospitals, and factories.

He also said South Africans should imagine bullet trains passing through Johannesburg as they travelled from Cape Town to Musina, and stopping in East London on their way back from Durban.

Leading experts in this market believe the country faces an uphill battle against ruthless suppliers who vaguely understand biometrics and are driving sales targets without providing adequate after-sales service. There are also many posers who have no genuine track record in the market or sufficient expertise to add any real value.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Global Information Technology Report 2013 on 10 April, revealing that South Africa is performing above average when it comes to ICT infrastructure and digital content.

The Global Information Technology Report 2013 features the latest results of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), offering an overview of the current state of ICT readiness in the world.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in his 2021 state of the nation address that the Lanseria Smart City, the first new city to be built in a democratic South Africa, is now a reality in the making. Plans for the Lanseria Smart City – first known as Cradle City – started in 2007 with the idea of creating South Africa’s first city built around an airport.

In the past, the concept of smart cities may have been a lofty consideration for a Sunday afternoon, but smart cities are no longer a preference—they are quickly becoming a critical necessity. This is due to the confluence of increasing urbanisation, greater pressure being placed on the successful management of a city due to a rising population, and climate change. The latter in particular means that a city needs to have the wherewithal to manage a sudden natural crisis, such as flooding, and be able to dispatch emergency and medical units without delay to save lives.

Compounding matters is the fact that, according to Gartner, the digitization of IT is further forcing cities to adapt, and, like most businesses, have a digital strategy in place. Smart cities are far from a flash in the pan—according to Transparency Market Research, the global smart cities market is growing 14% at present and is expected to reach a value of $1 265.85 billion by 2019.

South Africa’s new Smart ID card is one of the most advanced IDs in the world, said the solutions director of LAWtrust, Maeson Maherry.

Maherry, who was speaking at a cybersecurity symposium in Johannesburg, is overseeing the seven-year eID project with the Department of Home Affairs. It is one of LAWtrust’s largest programmes.