The South African government’s handling of its response to COVID-19 is highly commendable. If anything, its response has highlighted the very real need to improve access and connectivity for citizens across all levels of our society. It has shown that accelerating South Africa’s digital service delivery strategy is becoming an increasingly urgent aspect of just how to embrace doing things differently.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND UNIVERSAL ACCESS
The National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) published in 2012 states that by 2030, ICT will underpin the development of a dynamic and connected information society and a vibrant knowledge economy that is more inclusive and prosperous. A seamless information infrastructure will be universally available and accessible and will meet the needs of citizens, business and the public sector, providing access to the creation and consumption of a wide range of converged services required for effective economic and social participation – at a cost and quality at least equal to South Africa's main peers and competitors.
Read more: OPINION: Accelerating SA’s digital service delivery strategy is urgent
Government has made some bold statements about how digital technologies will empower and enable South Africans, but what does a realistic picture for a digital government look like?
What does a digital future really look like? For government CIO Mandla Ngcobo, it all comes down to information. With digital technologies, governments have so many more ways to make smart, strategic decisions. This is where the real value lies for public servants and the average person on the street. For example, when government started brainstorming the idea to build the Gautrain, it first had to ask, 'Why are we doing this?'. And the answer was clear. After doing research, government realised that a large number of people travel between Johannesburg and Pretoria every day and that many of these middle-class professionals are regularly late for work because of bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was based on this data that government made the informed move to build the rapid commuter rail system. “For digital to be impactful, it must be guided by facts, by intelligence and by data,” Ngcobo says.
On New Year’s Eve in 2016, a fire engulfed part of the Address Downtown hotel in Dubai, close to where revellers had gathered to watch a spectacular fireworks display. The incident was picked up by Pacific Controls, a data centre for buildings and infrastructure projects that had tied with the Dubai Civil Defence for real-time monitoring of buildings in the United Arab Emirates for any emergency alarms. In peak traffic, the blaze was put out in a couple of hours, and no fatalities were recorded.
The Pacific Controls company can monitor any alarm, from those for fires to those in elevators. A message is immediately sent to a command centre and a team is deployed. The system taps into the network of telecommunications company Etisalat, which provides a real-time tracker of any crises. Their track record is impressive. This is part of Dubai’s drive towards a smart city, which has seen the city push for real-time data for services across different departments. Data is stored on a cloud service, which is either a physical or virtual server. This is then controlled by a cloud-computing provider, such as Pacific Controls.
Taking on such a large public debt burden when the GDP-to-debt ratio is already strained does not seem advisable
In his state of the nation address last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa heralded the construction of a new 5G-ready smart city around Lanseria airport in the next decade. With it, SA was belatedly thrust to the front of a continent-wide rush to establish smart and eco-friendly cities, a means of jump-starting the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) powered by digital technology.
Read more: SA’s smart city drive may not be such a clever move
The digital economy involves small business owners having access to finance on a mobile device without having to go to a bank.
The digital economy has gotten a lot of attention, with increasingly powerful titles offering overwhelming and exciting exciting scenarios. Some warn of job losses due to automation, some questions about the things that digital technology can do. And then there’s real skepticism about whether this will translate into traditions to people who need it most.