E-government technology systems increase efficiency and reduce duplication of processes, thereby delivering cost savings to local authorities. This has an impact on the delivery of services to poorer people. Because these departments operate more efficiently, they have more money at their disposal to provide essential services, such as water, electricity, sewage and rubbish removal.
E-government is the transformation of government communications and systems to online services, to meet the needs of the business community, citizens, non-government organisations, government departments, employees and legal entities, in innovative ways, using technologies like the Internet, interactive voice response (IVR), kiosks, and other means.
ITWeb reports Jack Shilubane, acting government CIO, as saying that development work on the national e-government project is complete. Some municipalities have already launched enhanced customer service portals. Shilubane says all government information will be integrated on a single portal. Some departments, provinces, and municipalities have been doing e-government projects, begun before the government gateway was established. They will ultimately fit into the national process.
One such local authority that has begun e-government initiatives is Potchefstroom City Council (PCC). To ensure it keeps tabs on all business processes arising from incoming and outgoing documents and delivers the service its public requires, the city's officials have implemented a Web-based document management, workflow and portal solution.
The implementation at Potchefstroom creates a solid foundation on which to expand to a full e-government service.
The system is paperless. All documents are routed via the workflow engine, so there is no movement of paper documents between and among people and departments.
Even older employees, who are usually scared of technology, love the system, as they don't have to trace their documents and write notes to each other anymore - everything they need is stored in a place that is convenient for everyone to access.
Interaction among the fire, electricity and land departments is starting to happen. Getting documents to another department used to be an issue - now they are all connected via a LAN and have access to all the documents they should.
The departments are operating more cohesively. Ratepayers are also enjoying enhanced service - they are no longer pushed from department to department when they have a query, as all documents are at the fingertips of any PCC official. Efficiencies are up and customer service is improved.
Documents such as applications for erf rezoning, agendas and meeting minutes, are no longer lost. This helps the council deal with compliance issues.
If the mayor uses the system's push function to tell someone something must be done by a certain date and time, there is a pull function that alerts him if the job is not completed on schedule. He can then find out why it is not done, allocate it to another person, or allow more time for the task to be completed.
There is also an auto schedule function that can be set to alert a specific person that a job done six months ago is up for review, for example.
All documents are now scanned as they enter the council. The paper document is then stored in the central archives, the department tasked with holding and managing all physical documents for the council. The image is saved in PCC's workflow system and routed to the city secretary, who assigns each document to the appropriate people and departments.
Staff in the workflow process can add notes to the documents without affecting the original, keeping everyone updated as to what has occurred since the document entered the system and highlighting any problems or anomalies.
Recurring errors, such as a staff member continually returning a document or forwarding an incomplete document, are a warning beacon that additional training is necessary, allowing PCC to plan for corrective action targeted at real problems that employees experience in their day-to-day routines.
Should a member of the public call in to find out the progress on a letter sent to the council, for example, the council can immediately provide all pertinent information, such as what still needs to be done and by when the process should be finished.
The system intuitively and constantly improves productivity and the way things are done. This helps PCC deliver on its commitment to good governance for all its stakeholders.
Such a package can be used by even the largest metropolitan municipal regions, as it eases communications and control across a dispersed organisation. It is the first step in helping local authorities to meet national e-government requirements ahead of the government's plan.
Quelle: All Africa, 05.05.2004
