Government needs to embrace technology to improve some of the major social and basic service issues facing South Africa.
This is according to industry commentators, ahead of president Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2023 State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Ramaphosa will deliver the SONA at the Cape Town City Hall this evening, before a joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament – the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.
He will deliver the annual address amid a myriad of socio-economic ills in the country, with the power crisis, high unemployment, an ailing economy and lack of basic service delivery top among citizens’ concerns.
As the head of state readies to deliver his seventh SONA, commentators are of the view the ICT sector will be glossed over without considering how tech strategies or policies can deal with some of the national challenges.
Tech fix
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck says the ICT sector would like to see government accept, understand and embrace the tools that ICT can make available for services, such as home affairs, drivers’ licences, business registration, etc.
“The extent of lost productivity in this country is immeasurable in terms of the time people spend standing in queues; for example, at home affairs or waiting for simple licensing processes of various kinds to be concluded.
“SARS was once a by-word for efficiency and excellence in government. In recent years, it became a joke because of it falling to patronage and the like. There are no visible centres of excellence in government in South Africa today for that very reason. This is an area that needs a massive overhaul from an ICT perspective.”
One of the consequences of load-shedding, as almost a by-product, is the fact that cellular connectivity (phone calls and mobile data) now fails when there is load-shedding because the towers can’t cope with the constant power disruption, he comments.
Goldstuck believes one solution in this case would be to “provide tax breaks and incentives for towers to be powered by solar, along with home owners themselves having serious incentives to move to solar”.
Similarly, Mark Walker, associate VP for Sub-Saharan Africa at IDC MEA, notes lip service and sloganeering have been hallmarks of state support of the tech sector, to date.
He emphasises the sector wants to see practical, implementable, immediate plans to use technology to fix the multiple issues in the country.
“Dealing with corruption, lack of transparency, weak administrative controls, monitoring and reporting are all well within the ambit of technology-based solutions to solve.
“However, focus is on high-level ‘marketing speak’ − like fourth industrial revolution − and associated blue sky projects that rarely come to fruition.”
Walker contends that fixing the regulatory environment and finally opening up the tech sector to unrestrictive labour practices and commercial incentives, such as tax breaks, will encourage investment by global players.
“Ideally, government should focus on standing aside and letting the tech sector get on with providing viable solutions to national challenges and providing incentives to investment that accelerates development of the tech sector in South Africa.”
Hard pass
According to the commentators, any smart city ambitions should be placed aside, or find relevant private sector partners to lead its execution.
Ramaphosa previously stated his dream for a new South African city driven by smart technologies, saying such cities were being conceptualised by a number provinces in SA.
A draft master plan for the Lanseria Smart City,the first new city to be built in a democratic South Africa, was completed and put out for public comment, he revealed in 2021.
However, not much else has been said about whether it will ever become a reality.
Walker points out the Lanseria Smart City is a great example of “grandiose plans that offer hope (and garner votes)” but never come to fruition.
“To plan and build a smart city takes lots of investment and follow-through – merely getting a town planner to draw up a pretty plan and artists to render a model and artists’ impressions fall far short,” he states.
“With the current global economic climate, it is also doubtful investors will be willing to underwrite these projects in SA, when attractive options exist in Kenya and other African countries.”
Goldstuck believes the Lanseria Smart City is where private enterprise will do a better job.
Even if government were to provide its support and incentives to execute such a vision, he notes the state must stay out of the way. “They should only play an enabling role and any processes that impede private enterprise need to be significantly reduced from a red tape point of view.”
An analyst points out the president lived up to his promise that high-demand spectrum would be allocated to mobile network operators, after it was finally auctioned off last year.
The allocation of spectrum by means of an auction was part of the state’s plans to boost the national fiscus, as well as enable mobile network operators to speed up network rollouts for faster and more widespread high-speed data services, amid the digital economy acceleration.
Ofentse Dazela, director of pricing research at Africa Analysis, notes spectrum allocation was among the main issues dominating the national political agenda.
“The high-demand spectrum was eventually allocated to market players and another process is currently under way to auction more spectrum. This milestone is likely to be highlighted in the upcoming SONA, as a victory for the current administration that would inject some impetus in the local economy.
“However, the SA Connect initiative has not gained the kind of traction government had hoped to achieve to date.”
Going forward, Dazela believes government’s ICT agenda will likely focus on the need to connect schools to high-speed broadband, efforts to bridge the digital divide, as well as the need to ramp up the SA Connect project.
“With big metros and large cites now having access to more than one high-speed broadband technology, government will probably intensify efforts to connect the low-LSM income groups to high-speed broadband technologies.
“The goal would be how to coordinate efforts through private-public partnerships to ensure rural schools and less affluent remote communities have connectivity through the SA Connect initiative.”
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