Speaking during her budget vote address this week, finance MEC Louisa Mabe said IT played a key role in the province's response to unfavourable economic conditions. She added that the aim is to restore stability in the lives of those who will be affected by the global economic downturn. The answer, she said, would be found through programmes and systems, which increase productivity and protect the most vulnerable in the province.
“The demand for faster, more secured ICT infrastructure in the province is one of our major commitments to establish the basis from which we will build our information society.
“Our commitment for the 2009/10 financial year is to progressively replace the legacy infrastructure with faster broadband Internet infrastructure to improve the level of communication in departments.”
The MEC allocated provincial technology programmes R80.2 million for the 2009/10 financial year. The total budget for the province for the 2009/10 financial year is R335 966 million.
Mabe noted that providing several IT solutions was a priority. These included the development and maintenance of enterprise applications, management and support of network services and architecture, databases and data storage, ICT security, mainframe and server systems and provision of e-government services.
Skills shortage
The MEC also noted the tough challenges confronting the department. The upgrading of the current data infrastructure with newer broadband technology could not be completed in the previous year due insufficient relevant capacity. She added that the retention of skilled staff and high staff turnover in IT programmes were major concerns.
“The portfolio committee recommended that we revise the budget to increase the allocation to IT. There are challenges in that section which cannot be resourced by increasing the allocation. I earlier indicated that I have interacted with the [committee's] report [about] why the section does not deliver to its capacity.
“The recommendations of that report will assist to make them efficient before we increase its funding towards the fulfilment of its provincial mandate,” she said.
Mabe said studies previously conducted in the IT unit and through an internal audit will be applied this year. A retention strategy would also be developed to deal with the high vacancy rates, she added.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Audra Mahlong
Quelle/Source: IT Web, 14.07.2009
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