SA requires “e-readiness”

Johannesburg, 23 Mar 2009

Every conference has its buzzwords and “e-readiness” was one of the most popular at the third annual ITWeb eGovernment event. E-readiness was on the lips of a lot of speakers at the conference, with the key question being: how ready is the government and its customers when it comes to ICT roll-out for e-government?

In 2008, SA was ranked a respectable 39th in global e-readiness by the respected Economist Intelligence Unit, but what does that really say about the state of SA's ICT infrastructure, not to mention the ability of its citizens, businesses and governments to use ICT benefits?

Speakers at the conference broadly agreed that the success of the e-government service delivery model largely depends on SA's e-readiness. The consensus was that if the country is not “e-ready enough”, then its e-government initiatives, no matter how well-financed, aren't likely to make much of an impact.

Consequently, if e-driven change management and communication models are to be formulated to enable the planning, promotion and application of change across government for effective e-service implementation, a thorough and realistic e-readiness assessment needs to be done first.

Main areas

As the experts pointed out, e-readiness involves two main areas, both of them equally important - government's readiness to deliver on e-government projects and services, and citizens' readiness to consume online services, which involves both awareness of the services and mastery of the skills to make use of them, as well as access to ICT infrastructure.

The assessment of government readiness involves the identification of processes, legislation and ICT skills within government departments that need to be in place to achieve the successful implementation of identified e-services and to maintain continuity of support after the implementation.

The assessment of consumer readiness is more complicated but can be based on indices such as Web measure, human capital, telecommunication infrastructure, e-participation. Internet penetration rate (only 10.6% in Q3 of 2008) and mobile penetration rate (a healthy 101.8%).

Citizens are ready

Most speakers at the conference argued that the “access challenge” remains a fundamental hindrance to true leadership in customer e-service, but Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo, CEO of Lefatshe Technology, took a more optimistic line. She pointed out that, regardless of their level of education, people in SA know how to use cellphones and argued that if government provides technology to the people, “they will adopt it”.

“Technologies like mobile technology - cellphones - have provided the platform, “ Isaacs-Mpulo added, “so why can't they be used?”. 'The people are ready, it is the government which is not doing enough”.

Arguing that the issue of service delivery would be easier if the government was doing enough, she pointed out that coordination is the major hurdle in providing effective e-government services. But with progress remaining so slow, Isaacs-Mpulo went so far as to advise that government itself needed to be “reconstructed” for e-government to work.

The role of Sita should also be clarified, Isaacs-Mpulo added. She believes the Sita model “is never going to work” and that there should be one company to roll out the technology in order to provide “central control” of the process. Procurement, she argued, “is the least of the problems”.