SPEECH BY GAUTENG MEC FOR FINANCE, MS. BARBARA CREECY, ON THE OCCASION OF TABLING THE 2016/2017 BUDGET VOTE OF THE GAUTENG DEPARTMENT OF e-GOVERNMENT, GAUTENG PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE, 27 MAY 2016.
Madam Speaker;
Honourable Premier;
Honourable colleagues in the Executive Council;
Honourable Members of this House;
Leaders from Labour, Business and Communities;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
People of Gauteng;
INTRODUCTION
It is an honour and a privilege to present the Budget Vote Speech for Gauteng Department of e-Government (eGov), the first provincial department of its kind in our country.
Honourable members, as we present this speech which is all about the modernization of governance and the delivery of services in a digital age, we remain conscious of the historic significance of this year that marks the 26th anniversary of the release of President Nelson Mandela from prison; the 20th anniversary of the signing into law, of our democratic Constitution; the 60th anniversary of the Women’s March to the Union Buildings and 40 years since the landmark June 16th student uprising in Soweto. Like the great and world renowned philosopher Frantz Fanon said: “Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
These generations have sacrificed their lives for us to be where we are today. They have indeed fulfilled their mission, it is now up to us to take over the baton and move our province and our country forward.
Honourable members, the delivery of this budget also coincides with the celebrations of the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD-2016), which took place on the 17th May 2016 under the theme: “ICT entrepreneurship for social impact”. The day has been celebrated since 2006, led by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), one of the oldest intergovernmental organisations in the world. Its purpose is to help raise awareness of the possibilities available to societies and economies through the use of communication technologies.
In light of this, we are conscious today that advances in technology offer governments across the globe the possibility of re-shaping how we exercise our mandate.
ICT-enabled public service delivery offers an opportunity to improve efficiency and access to public services; develops the transparency and accountability of governments and empowers citizens to better participate in decision making processes.
To this end, our Department, which has been established to realize these IT-enabled possibilities, is guided by the National Development Plan and Premier Makhura’s Ten Pillar Programme of Transformation, Modernization and Re-industrialization.
According to the Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) General Household Survey, 2014, almost half of South African households (48,7%) had at least one member who used the Internet either at home, at work, in a place of study, or in an Internet café. In the Gauteng City Region, itself, Stats SA found that almost 60% of households have direct access to the Internet. It therefore becomes necessary for city Region Government to move towards providing on-line services.
Based on upward trends of increasing internet connectivity in the province, it is incumbent on government to provide on-line services.
In taking a decision to become the first provincial government to establish a department of e-Government, this ANC-led province was guided by the need to be at the forefront of developments in technology and innovation for three reasons:
· Firstly, to deliver optimal technological security, agility and efficiency in our daily operations;
· Secondly, to reduce the costs of operating a large state machinery and maximize the use of limited government resources, and
· Thirdly, to provide the necessary business intelligence to assist the administration to make evidence-based decisions to drive the GCR forward.
Guided by these principles we are optimistic that this year’s budget of R1.2 billion will go a long way in implementing our five objectives of our e-Government Strategy.
Building the infrastructure for a connected government
High speed connectivity is a critical foundational infrastructure requirement for success of the GCR modernization agenda, guided by the South Africa Connect policy.
Our implementation programme for the Gauteng Broadband Network is on track and to date we have a 1500 km network of fiber linking 8 Core Nodes across the province. We have also completed connectivity to the 400 initial sites covering the 5 developmental corridors within the city region.
The sites include:
· 100 schools – that will enable the Department of Education to roll out its smart schools initiatives
· 197 health sites, which include 32 hospitals,
· 11 economic zones
· 66 social development offices and institutions
· 6 provincial agencies, and
· 20 provincial departmental offices
During the 2016/17 financial year we will connect additional sites, these include: 13 Government to Citizen (Thusong Centres and libraries); 4 Government to Business (eKasi labs and economic zones) and 283 Government to Government sites. These include connecting a further 100 schools, 43 health facilities, 8 Social Development facilities, 37 local government clinics in the Westrand and 26 local government clinics in Sedibeng. This will bring the total to 892 sites connected across the region.
The Gauteng Broadband Network project has been allocated R325 million in the current financial year to achieve this target.
As part of our converged communication strategy (Voice, Data, Video), the Department will be modernizing aging telecommunication infrastructure to realize efficiencies and cost savings. We are looking at implementing a voice over data model and all telephone calls will be transmitted over our GBN data network. The cost of telephony throughout the province as well as interdepartmental communication will be significantly reduced.
The provincial government is not alone in rolling out broadband access in the city region. The three large metros have rolled out 2252 kms of fibre optic network in order to connect various government entities:
· The City of Johannesburg has rolled-out 1150 kms of fibre providing connectivity to 10 core sites for its Smart City Initiatives, like CCTV, WiFi hotspots for communities, and BRT as well as providing commercial broadband connectivity to the private sector and other municipal entities.
· The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality has rolled-out 602 kms of fibre connecting 27 core sites and the city has planned to complete its target of providing 1400 kms of fibre by June 2017, in order to connect 670 municipal buildings.
· The City of Tshwane has also rolled-out 500 kms of fibre connecting in excess of 350 municipal buildings, over 400 electricity substations and 250 CCTV cameras in the city.
Also, to bridge the digital divide and to ensure that ordinary citizens, who cannot afford private connectivity, have access to the internet, the three metros have collectively connected 1550 public WiFi hotspots; 400 in Johannesburg; 450 in Ekurhuleni and 700 hotspots in Tshwane.
Creating an enabling platform and support services to allow GCR entities to deliver e-Government services
Now Honourable members this significant work by the metro municipalities offers new opportunities for ICT co-operation and collaboration in the City Region. This includes support for the West Rand and Sedibeng districts where municipal resource constraints prevent significant connectivity programmes.
Accordingly, e-Government services across different spheres will be delivered through a Common Platform. This platform is accessible through an online single gateway for citizens, non-citizens, businesses, agents and government employees to various government services. It brings information together from diverse sources in a uniform way to achieve the following:
· Provide better access to information
· Remove barriers to applications
· Promote re-use of information, and
· Allow searches of large information
Citizens and businesses will be able to access e-services through their medium of choice whether though the Website, Cellphone, Contact Centre, Mobile Applications or social media.
The ICT Governance Committee has adopted an applications strategy to ensure that all applications within the GCR can be used for similar business functions and assist with the eradication of duplicate applications. To this extent, the Department will rationalize and eradicate obsolete operating systems across GPG departments during this financial year.
To achieve economies of scale and reduce application duplications within the region, all GCR entities and municipalities will have access to the SAP basket of services such as the Customer Relationship Management and the Financial Services Modules.
In contributing to the green economy and the reduction of the carbon footprint 4 remaining departments will be migrated to the provincial cloud by the end of this financial year. This will assist in reducing the number of data centres in the province.
In terms of on line services currently available we have automated the supplier self-registration portal to allow, in particular, small business owners to more efficiently do business with Government; set up an e-Recruitment system to help citizens’ access government job opportunities online; and assisted the Department of Infrastructure Development to enable contractors and infrastructure personnel to interact online through video calling while at the development site in order to reduce travel time and ensure that critical decisions related to building projects can be taken immediately.
Together with the Department of Health, we are providing broadband connectivity to all Health facilities in the province. This will allow clinicians to access patient records from any health facility in the province.
In this financial year we are:
· Improving the Gauteng Public Liaison hotline to ensure citizens are kept up to date with the status of their calls through alerts and notifications.
· Working with the Department of Economic Development to develop an online system for liquor license applications enabling citizens to apply for licenses, in real time at their own convenience.
· Developing a transversal Interactive Case Management system for Treasury’s Gauteng Audit Services to provide a detailed audit trail of cases and resolutions.
· To be in line with our modernization agenda, the Department will revolutionize how citizens and business interact with government by redesigning the current website. The new website will enable GCR to deliver interactive and transactional services that will enable citizens and business to interact effectively and efficiently with government.
Before the end of this term we will:
· Deliver a single Geographical Information System for the GCR which will allow location identification of incidents and enable rapid interventions by government.
· Collaborate with Gautrain and the Department of Transport to develop an Integrated Fare Management System in order to activate single ticketing for citizens.
Establishing a GCR e-Government governance structure to drive priorities, policies, standards and regulations.
To ensure integration and interoperability of systems in the GCR, we have embarked on a drive to develop policies, standards and architectures that will guide and govern how we invest, develop and use ICTs in the region.
To optimize our investment, the Department will commission an audit of ICT functions and capabilities within GCR in order to assess the current ICT environment. This will allow the GCR to make informed decisions on the way forward creating a consolidated, uniform and common approach to delivering ICT services.
In this financial year we will develop and implement the ICT governance frameworks that will guide the implementation of ICT infrastructure and e-Services. Included here is the all-important matter of Information Security a matter which I know is very close to the heart of members of this house.
The move to on-line services presents government everywhere with new risks of failure. To mitigate this reputational risk, the Department has entered into a partnership with WITS and the Gauteng Innovation Hub to assist us in developing the Design and Validation (DAV) Centre to ensure key strategy and technological initiative are interoperable and integrate with existing technologies in the region and that each proposed technological solution is designed, developed and tested (including stress and load testing) in accordance with the established testing standards.
Furthermore, to focus on driving coordinated and efficient ICT investment in the province. Provincial Treasury, together with the Department of e-Government, will conduct an ICT Investment assessment to determine the nature of the ICT investments already made and what is being planned. This will better enable the Premier’s e-Government Steering Committee to ensure future investments are in line with ICT policies and standards and avoid duplication and costs.
Promoting the use of e-Government services amongst citizens, businesses and government entities.
As we roll out e-services, it is important to promote the usage of e-Government services amongst citizens, businesses and government entities through community outreach programmes through the Ntirhisano road shows; the production of an e-Service catalogue for public and business purposes, as well as participation in a number of local and international ICT forums.
As part of this process we also hosted the Gauteng ICT and e-Government Summit last year to provide a platform to evaluate the progress made by the Gauteng Provincial Government in implementing the City Region e-Government Strategy.
The Summit also provided an interactive, engaging space that brought together Gauteng’s e-Government stakeholders, including citizen and youth entrepreneurs to collaborate around the GCR’s e-Government strategy and to create digital cohesion.
Supporting Township Economic Revival and Skills Development
As part of our contribution to the Township Economy Revitalization Strategy, we are connecting township entrepreneurs to the broadband network. This year we will be extending connectivity to the Winterveld Enterprise hub, the Tshimologong ICT Innovation Hub, and the Automotive Industry Development Centre.
We have also engaged a number of public and private sector partners to collaborate in increasing ICT skills that are required by the industry to grow the ICT economy. To date, critical partnerships have been formed to train our youth to enable them to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the ICT industry. Some of these partnerships and initiatives are:
· Software development training and mentoring through:
o Joburg Centre for software Engineering (JCSE); and
o Gauteng Innovation Hub for software development training through eKasi Labs in Ga-Rankuwa and Soweto.
· The Skills for Africa Academy. This is an internship programme aimed at developing SAP software skills for the private and public sectors. Currently, 60 interns have been trained and the Department of e-Government has absorbed 19 of these learners. This programme will continue in this financial year.