Government in partnership with Swazi MTN has introduced mobile based government services, dubbed m-Government.
Through this service, citizens will use their mobile phones to access services. The programme started with the ministry of home affairs, health and the meteorology department under the ministry of tourism and environmental affairs.
The m-Government service was launched at the Happy Valley Hotel yesterday morning.
The service seeks to enable citizens to access services using their cellphones. For instance, one would be able to get SMS based weather information using the cellphone.
Dominated
They can also access information pertaining their documents such as IDs and passports they had applied for in the ministry of home affairs, to check if they are ready for collection.
The e-government office under the prime minister’s office is responsible for the project.
Speaking at the lunch, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini said the cellphone had now dominated the human life and there is a potential dark side of its usage.
He made an example of drivers using their cellphones while on the road, thereby causing accidents.
He said such was a violation of traffic laws, punishable by a fine.
On the positive, Dlamini said the new technology in the form of a cellphone was used to make the mobile device work for economic and social advancement in the country.
Government
He said the potential benefits are clearly considerable and welcome.
“With this objective in mind, we have launched the Swaziland Government Mobile Based Service,” Dlamini said.
He said the programme would provide the cellphone users with the ability to access government services.
“It is part of our e-Government strategy, leveraging on information, and communication technology, to make government more efficient and effective in meeting the needs of the citizens of our country.
It effectively supplements the existing e-Government initiative of accessing many such services via the internet,” he added.
Environment
Dlamini said the m-Government service was effectively a transformation in the way things were done and that services were already available in respect of weather forecasting and health disaster management.
He said next in line was the service provided by the ministry of commerce, industry and trade. Dlamini said such service would focus on improving the business environment and enable access to visas, work permits, company registration as well as license renewals.
Dial *468# to check ID
IT now costs a simple SMS to check if one’s documents applied for at the ministry of home affairs are ready.
Rather than going to the home affairs offices physically and queuing for hours to find out if documents are ready, citizens will now only have to send an SMS.
This comes after government partnered with Swazi MTN in introducing mobile government services. After having applied for the documents such as passports and the national ID, citizens will now simply dial *468#, follow instructions and get information regarding their queries.
The service was launched at the Happy Valley Hotel yesterday morning.
Minister of Home Affairs Princess Tsandzile said the programme was going to be beneficial and cost-effective as clients would no longer have to travel long distances, spending money and precious time to go and get their documents only to find that those documents are not ready.
She said people were being sent back empty-handed and told to come back another day to collect their documents. She said the latest service was going to be cost-effective.
Comedian amuses PM with Ramodibedi joke
IT seemed comedian Gedlembane amused Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini with a joke wherein he made reference to former Chief Justice Michael Ramodibedi who was fired last week.
Gedlembane was engaged to perform at the launch of the government mobile based service (m-Government) yesterday.
He aligned his jokes with the event, and at some point made reference to the long queues at the home affairs departments, where people often spend long hours waiting to get services.
When cracking his joke, Gedlembane said the queues were too long they could stretch to as far as Ramodibedi’s homeland.
The joke was in a form of a conversation between him (Gedlembane) and his uncle.
In the joke, his uncle is complaining that he was sick due to stress because he lost his ID.
The illness was therefore linked to stress levels which peaked when he thought of the queues.
“Madze lamalayini afika le ekhabo Ramodibedi,” he said, loosely translated; “The queues are too long they can go as far as Ramodibedi’s home country.”
Gedlembane had to pause for a moment as the audience burst into laughter. Ramodibedi’s home country is Lesotho.
When it was his time at the podium, the PM stated that government was concerned with the long queues at its departments.
He said he noted what Gedlembane said about long queues.
“Gedlembane utsi emalayini asuka la ayofika khabobani ke?” he said, with the audience bursting into laughter.
He continued to say government was keen to reduce the queues and provide efficient service.
ICT critical for info dissemination
Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) is critical for economic development, Swazi MTN Chief Executive Officer Ambrose Dlamini has said.
Speaking at the launch of the m-Government services at the Happy Valley Hotel, Dlamini said as a company, they realised that their role was not just to provide mobile network service but it needed to go beyond and meet the needs of the 21st century client.
He said the launch of the m-Government was important in many ways and theirs as a company was to make communication more affordable. He applauded government for the advances made and encouraged collaboration of stakeholders working on the project so as to realise the benefits of the service to the economy.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Winile Masinga
Quelle/Source: The Swazi Observer, 23.06.2015
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