Govt must embrace ICT: Phumzile
Shaun Benton
21 August 2007Senior government managers should acquaint themselves with enough contemporary information and communications technology (ICT) platforms to properly manage IT consultants and avoid "fruitless expenditure", Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the GovTech conference in Cape Town this week.
The conference, which runs at the Cape Town International Convention Centre between 21 and 23 August, is themed "Transformation through technology together".
It is organised by the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) and has drawn around 1 400 of the country's leading publicly and privately employed IT managers.
Mlambo-Ngcuka said it was the government's mission to ensure that political principals embrace the power of ICT as the country seeks to invest in expanding its ICT infrastructure. This is being done to increase connectivity and lower communications costs in the country.
The power of ICT, she said, is being harnessed by the government to improve service delivery to the majority of South Africans, by providing services faster, cheaper and more efficiently to its citizens.
'Imaginary problems'
But she warned against "unmanaged consultants" to government departments dictating wasteful expenditure on ICT by selling certain systems as solutions to "imaginary problems".
"Senior managers across a range of levels in government would not be able to widen access to ICT if they could not empower themselves to understand what they need to know about this technology and appropriately manage the process," Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
As such, managers such director-generals in the government's various departments cannot afford to remain ignorant of IT systems and platforms.
Mlambo-Ngcuka added that responsible and wise use of ICT could produce effective results, citing the efficient delivery of the child support grants as an example.
"The same applies to child-maintenance payments and other systems," she said
High telecoms costs
Mlalbo-Ngcuka acknowledged that the high cost of telecommunications in South Africa was hampering development in the ICT sector, but added that the country would see "significant progress" toward reducing these costs within the next 18 months.
Ultimately, ICT can be effectively used by developing countries such as South Africa to dramatically reduce underdevelopment and to leapfrog stages of development that may have taken decades in industrialised countries.
"If we are unable to do that, we remain irrelevant to the revolution," she said.
Source: BuaNews
