A significant number of service delivery initiatives in the public sector are now ICT-driven. As an organisation, MTN Business has been given the opportunity to assist government with solutions to connect with its citizens in various situations, using more cost-effective and efficient communication tools.
Many of these solutions are making it easier for government officials to stay connected to their offices wherever they are - with mobility being the key for them to stay in touch. However, this public sector mobility takes place on two levels.
Firstly, there are mobility solutions and strategies in place for public sector employees to interact with one another. Secondly, there is a strong drive from the public sector to develop mobile solutions that will provide the citizens of our country with seamless access to government services online.
Up and running
Since 2006, MTN Business has partnered with SITA to develop products jointly to promote mobility in the government space. This led to the launch of MOBiGOV, a secure public sector mobile platform developed by MTN, and is the first offered under the partnership between SITA and the GSM networks. It provides government departments with secure and remote access to all their service offerings via a mobile platform that supports broadband data transactions.
While SITA is the central point for working with government on ICT solutions, MTN Business also works closely with various departments that are also end-users of the MTN solutions themselves.
By working with the Department of Social Development through the SA Social Services Agency (SASSA), MTN's flexible solutions have enabled the agency to improve its service delivery mandate with the timeous payment of social grants and pensions at remote rural sites that were not previously connected to a fixed-line network. The results have been immensely positive and feedback from areas such as Limpopo Province has indicated that the MTN solution has enabled the payment process delivery to improve from a few months to a few days.
Connecting schools
"We are also working closely with the Provincial Department of Education to provide Internet connectivity to rural schools where there is no fixed-line network," states Dlamini. "This project forms part of the MTN SA Foundation's Schools Connectivity initiative and has enabled us to provide numerous schools with computer labs that are connected via MTN data cards.
"Such has been the success of this project that it has grown beyond being just a social responsibility initiative and has become a commercial product, which a number of schools are implementing. This is very exciting for us."
The Department of Home Affairs is another example of a strong ICT and connectivity strategy, started a few years ago, which is now paying dividends. One of the positive outcomes of this is the SMS tracking of ID document applications.
Citizens can monitor the progress on the issuing of their ID documents and receive an SMS notification when their ID documents are ready for collection. "This is an excellent example of technology playing a pivotal role in the service delivery of government and its departments to the citizens of South Africa," comments Dlamini.
Since its inception, SITA has overcome a number of challenges to secure its position as a key industry player in motivating public sector departments to implement ICT-driven solutions.
"The organisation is playing a crucial role in driving this adoption and we at MTN Business are anticipating significant growth in mobile connectivity solutions in the public sector space going forward," concludes Dlamini.
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Quelle/Source: ITWeb, 22.08.2008
