The department on Thursday admitted that the index was a starting point, and that the data collected to launch the new measurement tool had been difficult to collate. It hoped that as data improved, so would the eBarometer.
The report is aimed at facilitating an evidence-based and scientific approach when planning and implementing projects contained in the department's Strategic Plan.
Deputy minister for the DoC, Obed Bapela, said: "The presentation of this report indicates the strong steps we have taken towards becoming an inclusive information society. The report highlights some of the gaps we need to close swiftly. Our performance across many ICT indices is stagnant or slipping. This is in contrast to our peers in BRICS, whose performance has generally improved."
The report is broken down into nine sectors namely: individual, household, community, e-education, e-health, e-government, local content, business, and the ICT sector. The index was calculated by averaging all of the sectoral indices for each year. It was then represented as a score an illustrated in a chart with the year-on-year growth.
The eBarometer Index for 2009, its most recent year of measurement, measured 61.57 following a steady compound annual growth rate of 3.92% from the year 2000, when it stood at 43.93.
In the period 2000 through 2006, the growth rate was 3.5% and increased to 4.47% for the period 2006 through to 2009.
The DoC attributed the higher growth in the later years to an increase in quality of competition in the market, increases in mobile subscribers, access to the 3G network, increased government sensitivity on high telecommunications prices, increased access to the internet and broadband, as well as the increased international bandwidth availability.
The measuring tool was, however, launched as a secondary study, meaning that it did not generate any data from direct measurements, but rather it analysed a set of primary studies.
Bandile Hadebe of the Department of Communications said that the department went the secondary route due to a lack of data, but it was hoped that with more data, the barometer would become a primary study in due course.
"We can't keep relying on others to do the work," he said.
Hadebe said of the new tool: "If it's not measured, it's not done. We need to measure so we make sure it's done. We need to tell a South African story in a South African perspective. We need to begin to tell our own story."
He said it was "not ok to be obsessed with growth," adding that the rate of growth was more important.
He said that if ICT issues in SA were not solved, "we are going to fall behind the commitments by government to create jobs within the information society."
He stressed that the role of creating jobs however, was not government's alone, and industry needed to contribute.
The Minister of Communications, Roy Padayachie, the Department of Communications (DoC) and ICT industry leaders on the weekend signed an ICT Industry Competitiveness and Job Creation Compact committing to 100% broadband penetration by 2020 and the creation of one million additional jobs throughout the ICT industry.
The Compact was finalised following a two-day workshop during which the participants made personal commitments to work together to achieve the objectives and targets.
The Compact recognised the significant role ICT could play to accelerate economic growth, meaningfully impact job creation through a strong partnership between government (lead by the Department of Communications) and the private sector.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Gareth Vorster
Quelle/Source: BusinessLIVE, 04.08.2011
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