The regional government says the Cape Gateway project is the first of its kind in the country. It includes a walk-in centre where members of the public can have free Internet access to various provincial government sites and a call centre outsourced to British-owned firm Dialogue. Western Cape minister of finance and economic development Ebrahim Rasool opened the centres yesterday by symbolically cutting through red tape, as a sign that the public will have an easier time accessing various government services and departments in future.
"Governments are naturally conservative and resistant to this type of change, however, technology will not leave government unchanged. People will now demand levels of service that government will have to find ways to fulfil", Rasool said.
Cape Gateway is a project of the Cape Online E-Government programme, which commits itself to "citizen-centric" technologies and initiatives. It is the first step in the staged introduction of e-government in the Western Cape. A Web portal that will complement the call and walk-in centres will be launched later this year.
"While the opening of the call centre may be a small step as far as technology is concerned, it is a giant leap forward in e-government", said Harold Wesso, head of the Knowledge Economy and E-Government project in the provincial government.
Telkom is a sponsor of the Cape Gateway project and allows the service to use a system for all provincial government telephone numbers to be dialled internally, so saving on call costs.
"Telkom is ensuring that people, government and businesses not only have basic phone services but also full end-to-end communications", said Godfrey Ntoele, Telkom's managing executive for government and business markets.
He said Telkom had recognised that provincial governments "were the best paying clients".
Quelle: IT Web
