South Africa's justice cluster spends the most money on ICT, with the police responsible for 42% of overall government ICT spend. This is according to stats from BMI-TechKnowledge's recent 2015 ICT in government report.
BMI-T found the justice cluster ? which includes the departments of justice and constitutional development, correctional services and police ? makes up over 50% of government ICT spend, followed by the departments of home affairs and treasury.
The report found that spend at national department level "is very lumpy", with six out of 40 national departments forecast to make up 80% of ICT spend.
"The next six national departments are forecast to comprise 11% of national ICT spend, with the remaining 23 departments' ICT spend together totalling the remaining 9%," according to BMI-T.
BMI-T says government's Integrated Justice System (IJS) is one of the major initiatives driving national ICT spend in SA, with around 70 technology projects running already. The IJS is expected to be fully functional by the end of the 2018/19 financial year, with 28 key performance indicators in place. Fourteen of these were already completed in the current financial year.
The South African government's total national and provincial ICT spend is projected to grow from R13.6 billion in 2014/2015 to R15 billion in 2017/2018, according to BMI-T.
The report found that computer services make up about 80% of government ICT spend, while communications contributes only the remaining 20%. Both national and provincial government ICT spend are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 3.5%.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is prioritising the strengthening of the criminal justice system and is budgeting R9.1 billion on IT investment over three years. The SAPS has also set a target to upgrade 95% of IT networks at police sites by 2017/18.
BMI-T says the eventual intention is to link the justice cluster's online systems with the person identification systems of home affairs and the databases of the departments of social development and health.
"The Department of Home Affairs' ICT spend is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.6%, with the continuation of the creation of a modernised, integrated information system, improving its client interfaces and increasing immigration enforcement capacity."
BMI-T says ongoing problems, however, beset this initiative.
"A tender to seek a 'service provider to provide resources to implement an integrated justice system for a period of three years' was issued in the last week of May 2015, by the National Department of Home Affairs (tender no DHA09-2015). On 12 June 2015, the tender was cancelled," according to BMI-T.
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