Cape Town beat other hopefuls as the government department with the best ICT practices in the country. Over the past three years, the city has spent R360 million to start up and run its Enterprise Resource Programme system.
It has said the money will be recovered over the next five years. The new system integrates all the information systems from the previous seven municipalities that made up the city. It also includes the city's new billing system.
Deputy Mayor Pierre Uys said the award vindicated the large investment the city had made in ICT.
"This places Cape Town at the forefront of integrated information management in local government in Africa," said Uys.
He invited other cities, including Johannesburg, to "come and learn from us".
Uys said the city was committed to becoming a Smart City by employing technology to improve and speed up service delivery and by giving ICT access to all communities, especially the poor.
He said the international award-winning SmartCape Access project, in which computers with internet access are placed in public libraries, was also part of the city's award-winning ICT strategy.
The city won the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation award and $1m for the Smartcape Access project in July. The money is being used to supply libraries with computers and basic training for communities.
Nirvesh Sooful, the city's chief information officer (CIO), was a runner-up in the public sector CIO of the Year category for implementing creative solutions to improve service delivery to the people of Cape Town and for encouraging efficient ICT in local government.
This year the city also won the national Environmental Affairs and Tourism department's cleanest metropolitan city in the country award and scooped six awards at the Western Cape Institute for Housing awards, including best local housing authority of the year.
Quelle: Independent Online, 11.11.2003
