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.
Read more: South Africa’s big smart city and bullet train promises
The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has prioritised several technology projects to realise its smart city ambitions, and it plans to invest R316.5 million to get them off the ground.
The projects include implementing an eHealth programme, an automated fare collection system for the Rea Vaya bus service, and installing fire detection and suppression mechanisms at substations.
Read more: ZA: Joburg to spend R316.5 million on smart city systems
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.
Read more: ZA: City of Joburg to deploy e-health, digitise health records
Increased broadband connectivity has a meaningful and direct impact on the economic prospects of individuals, communities and countries at large. A World Bank study estimated that a 10% increase in broadband penetration in low and middle-income countries can result in a 1,38% increase in economic growth.
At home, Statistics SA’s General Household Survey released in December last year found that 8,3% of households in South Africa had access to the internet via copper or fibre. This is not to say that the rest of the country is not interested in connecting – the same survey found that almost two thirds of South Africans access the internet via a mobile connection.
Digital citizen services platform "My Smart City" says citizens logging service delivery issues with the platform have seen a three- to four-fold improvement in turnaround times in resolving service delivery issues like water outages, broken traffic lights, potholes and power outages in major metropolitans across the country.
Improved resolution of service delivery issues is partly owing to the free, privately funded platform investing in a dedicated dispatch centre. The dispatch team ensures logged issues on the My Smart City platform go through the correct channels and makes follow-ups on behalf of citizens.