IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to the Democratic Alliance's shadow deputy minister of public enterprises, Erik Marais, the project will take place over the next five to seven years and will make the city "the most digitally connected in Africa". He says the improved communication links were important to service delivery objectives.

In a strongly worded statement referring to “recent events surrounding allegations of misconduct within the Department of Communications” and increasing frustration felt by business, the chamber accused the department of failing to meet targets and properly govern information and communication technology (ICT).

Affordable broadband is being promised by the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Department of Communications.

In January 2012 Communications Minister Dina Pule reaffirmed the Department of Communications’ (DoC’s) commitment to deliver 100% broadband penetration in South Africa by 2020.

Two years ago, the City of Joburg presented its revised Smart City Strategy 2019/21, which anchored the city as a “city that is economically competitive, addresses its critical threats more efficiently and becomes attractive as a liveable and sustainable city." Over the past few months with the election of the multi-party leadership governing the City of Joburg, the City has hinted that it was getting ready to become a city of the future with the council having recently approved the Multi-Party Government’s Hybrid Working Policy, which it says is the first of its kind for any city or government in South Africa.

McKinnley Mitchell, for the office of the MMC for Group Corporate and Shared Services spokesperson says the Hybrid Working Policy is centred on the pillars of international best practice with aims to increase productivity and morale of employees while reducing costs and the carbon footprint generated by the City of Joburg. This is in line with the Executive Mayor’s priorities of ensuring that Joburg is a city that gets the basics right and aims to become a well-run smart city for residents.

Residents of the City of Joburg are still unable to view their bills on the e-Services portal of the municipality’s website after it was disabled due to the discovery of a security flaw over 2 months ago.

Ratepayers are also not able to sign up to receive their statements by e-mail due to the downtime, a spokesperson for City of Joburg told MyBroadband.

Two tech startups have the opportunity to win R100 000 each in the Smart City Innovation Challenge, an initiative developed by the City of Johannesburg in partnership with Tshimologong Innovation Precinct.

In an official statement, the City of Johannesburg explains the aim of the innovative challenge.

The City of Johannesburg is set to digitise patient records through an e-health solution to be rolled out in the coming year.

This is according to executive mayor Mpho Phalatse, who outlined plans to use digital technologies in anchoring service delivery during her State of the City Address last week.

The City of Johannesburg (COJ) will spend R21.5 million on the implementation of its e-health system.

So says executive mayor Mpho Phalatse, marking the coming into effect of the multi-party government’s R77.3 billion budget for the 2022/23 financial year.

While the COJ announced budget plans for the city at the end of May, it’s only now that budget funds may officially start to be utilised for various projects.

“The normalisation of the city's billing situation is and has been a priority of government over the past months. The mayoral committee has identified this as one of the key issues to be resolved as we move towards achieving our vision of being a world-class African city,” said member of the mayoral committee (MMC) for finance Geoffrey Makhubo.

Each of the four winners will receive R500,000 and an opportunity to pilot their solutions with the city’s departments or entities.

Every week there are reports of service delivery protests across the country. If you go to social media on a daily basis, someone is posting about how their city, town, village or township is falling apart.

South Africans are frustrated with power cuts, crime, potholes, water leaks, illegal businesses, illegal dumping, squatter camps and gender-based violence.

Mr Maphologela said this week that e-services were an initiative of the city meant to provide online access to a range of services for individuals and businesses in the greater Johannesburg area. "Mail gets lost in the post office, or gets delivered to the wrong address and as a result the customer never receives his statement. There is also a lot of returned mail with wrong addresses," he said.

The City reassured its customers their information is safe with the city’s billing system and none of the information can be manipulated.

“The City of Johannesburg is currently experiencing technical challenges with the online viewing of e-statements. The problem has been identified and we are working around the clock to rectify the situation,” said the City of Johannesburg in a statement.

The City of Tshwane’s “groundbreaking” broadband project aimed at promoting an e-government has been put on hold after it was withdrawn from a city council agenda.

The City said the council report approving the project was to be tabled in the council meeting of 25 February 2016.

The City of Tshwane’s Namola crimefighting system and app, which was piloted last year, will be deployed across the entire city, and smartphones compatible with the app will be installed in all Tshwane Metro Police Department vehicles, the city’s executive mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa has said.

Ramokgopa highlighted this during the State of the Capital Address presented today at Freedom Park, Pretoria, adding that 2 000 officers will be trained on how to use the emergency response system.

The City of Johannesburg’s drive to accelerate the use of technology as a means to facilitate and promote learning and literacy received a major boost at the launch of the e-Learning project on Friday, 27 March 2015, at the Sandton Library.

This launch coincided with SA Library Week. The theme “Connect @ your Library” speaks to the Smart Citizen Programme that will see the City, not only connecting people to the library, but also linking them to the global world through WIFI and Internet access at libraries.

The move is expected to speed up industry queries into whether prospective employees have criminal records. CIO Marius van Niewenhuizen adds the biometric facility will also help clear job applicants who are incorrectly thought to have records, because of inaccuracies when data is captured.

HumanIPO reported Cwele was named minister of the newly created Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services in May, moving from his long-standing role as minister for state security.

The new department has been allocated R1.59 billion, according to the minister.

Cwele said continued deployment of the country's broadband infrastructure will be prioritised to bridge the divide between rural and urban areas, and adding to around 170 000km of fixed-line fibre currently linking towns and cities.

We often talk about cyber-security from the perspective of the private sector, however, governments and public sector organisations hold vast troves of data on citizens. If this gets into the wrong hands, it can wreak havoc, and diminish the trust among the voting public.

We have already seen elements of this in South Africa. For instance it was reported that in 2016 almost 9 million South Africans were victims of some form of cyber-crime. Government plays a crucial role in securing the citizen data held in its databases, as well as in helping to educate our nation on the measures to protect themselves against global crime syndicates.

Ericsson and the Communications Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) signed a memorandum of understanding this week to support the accelerated development of policies and regulations in the ICT sector of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

CRASA is a consultative body that was set up by SADC regulators to effectively develop harmonised policies and regulations for the ICT sector in the region.