IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Government is falling short of its target of allocating 30% of its national IT spend to black economic empowerment (BEE) companies. This was revealed by Mojalefa Moseki, CIO for the State IT Agency (SITA), who was speaking last night at a First Tuesday presentation on e-government. Figures released two years ago showed that BEE expenditure accounted for less than 8% of government IT spend, and while annual results that will be released later this year should reflect some improvement, the figure will still fall short of the mandate.

"We are not going to apologise, but we will take BEEs as and when they deliver", said Moseki. "Technology is expensive; we will not just rush for the numbers, we will consider every case on its merits."

His presentation outlined the six stages of a technology roll-out that should see the public services of the South African government provided from a completely integrated, single Internet portal.

The six stages include:

1. The non-transactional provision of information;
2. Two-way transactions, allowing enterprises and citizens to register using secure digital signatures;
3. Multipurpose portals being integrated into a single point of entry, realising government services as a single entity;
4. Personalised access so that each user is greeted individually by the system;
5. Related services clustered together, invisibly triggering information flows; and
6. Comprehensive streamlining of services through a centralised enterprise portal.

This will allow citizens to access public services 24 hours a day from any location. The creation of ATM-like walk-in centres at banks, supermarkets and post offices will address the lack of access in rural areas, so that services like applying for an ID document or registering a birth can be handled from even the most remote locations.

Although the June deadline for roll-out of the first stage has already passed, Moseki maintains that SITA will not be off target by more than six months. "We set the time because this is not just for the sake of delivering technology, but for the sake of delivering services to the people' we are moving with great haste", he assured.

Quelle: ITWeb