Preliminary results of a study into the effectiveness of electronic government at the municipal level in Gauteng show that most municipalities are still only at very early stages of e-delivery.
Out of 14 surveyed, only one, the City of Johannesburg, has made significant progress. The survey was presented yesterday by Luci Abrahams, of the Wits LINK centre, at ITWeb's eGoverment Conference, at Emperors Palace, in Johannesburg. It is part of LOG-IN Africa, an emergent pan-African network of researchers and research institutions from nine countries.
Its mandate is to assess the current state and outcomes of local e-government initiatives in Africa, and in particular how ICTs are being used to realise good local governance.
Findings
Fourteen municipalities were surveyed according to various criteria, said Abrahams.
"We looked at what delivery phase of e-government they were at, as well as content, navigation and technical aspects. Of the total, 12 had a Web site and 11 of those were still in phase one of e-government," she said.
"The City of Johannesburg stood out as it was already in phase two and offered a range of online services, as well as some transactional capability."
Municipal Web site content came in for some criticism.
"Web sites are not explicit about what the various municipal functions are, how they are shared between local and district authorities and what social development and local economic development information is available," said Abrahams. "They are also not delineated to target audiences such as residents, businesses and visitors."
Some of the other findings:
* Too much information was in English only;
* Contact information was provided, but responsiveness to e-mails was poor or non-existent;
* The sites had outdated information such as event calendars;
* There was a heavy reliance on PDF files and little or no summary of the content;
* Municipal health services presented mostly limited info on clinics;
* The information was presented as user-unfriendly databases;
* Search quality and performance were poor; and
* The sites were too slow.
Some sites received accolades for features they had implemented. The City of Johannesburg's site map, Tshwane's multilingual approach to its content, Ekurhuleni's refuse removal timetables and Sedibeng's tender guides were praised.
The study also looked at the digital divide in the Gauteng area. It found:
* 28.5% of households have access to landlines;
* 48.7% have access to cellphones;
* Community services telephones operate at a ratio of 1:250 people;
* 25% of households have access to PCs; and
* 20% of households have access to Internet.
Recommendations
Abrahams says there are a number of draft recommendations from the study.
"There must be explicit objectives for social development and local economic development," she said. "Also, provinces must have their e-government strategies aligned with those objectives and their own priorities. There also seems to be no conversation between local government authorities and the policymakers in the Department of Communications as far as we are aware. This must change."
She also called for an independent non-partisan advisory panel to contribute expertise and advice. "Too many businesses want to sell pure technology to local government. Business is not selling what local government needs."
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