ZA: City of Johannesburg hopes to solve service delivery issues with Smart City Innovation Challenge
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.
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.
Read more: ZA: City of Joburg’s e-health system receives hefty budget
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.
Read more: ZA: City of Joburg approves plan to become hybrid city
Internet service provider RocketNet and fixed network operator (FNO) Zoom Fibre have partnered to rollout high-speed fibre internet in Saldanha Bay.
The move is in line with the West Coast city’s vision to turn Saldanha Bay Municipality into a safe, digital city, according to a statement.
Amoeba TSC won the tender to lay the cable needed for fibre internet in 2020 and selected Zoom Fibre as its implementation partner and funder.
Read more: ZA: Western Cape: Saldanha Bay’s smart city vision gets into gear
Jobs, service delivery and crime were issues brought forward by residents of eThekwini after the municipality announced that it was rolling out free wi-fi in the inner city.
The eThekwini Municipality has also started putting up boards alerting residents where the wi-fi spots are.
On Thursday morning, the municipality said that it had installed free wi-fi hotspots in Warwick Junction, Florida Road and the beachfront in keeping with plans to promote Durban as a smart city with access to the digital world.