The City of Johannesburg will manage its IT costs to help it face the global economic crisis.
Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo today released the city's planned budget for 2009/10, which says the city has decided not to buy any new laptops, computers or printers for the coming financial year.
Masondo says the global economic crisis will place pressure on certain areas in the budget; the technology spend being part of that. “The current scarcity of credit means it will be expensive for the city to borrow to fund its capital expenditure, and it might be difficult to raise funds to the required scale. Accordingly, borrowing has decreased substantially in the 2009/10 MTB [medium-term budget]. Debt servicing costs have also escalated.”
The budget cuts follow what Masondo calls budget pressures on “discretionary items”, which also include a cut in telecommunications services. The new budget shows city employees will now only be given one type of telephone, either a land-line, or a cellphone, depending on the kind of work they do.
Consulting services have also taken a knock in the budget. The cuts could see a decline in available city IT tenders over the coming year. There are some departments with larger spends allocated for IT and telecoms; however, most have been pushed back to the 2010/11 financial year.
City Power will receive R40.3 million for software rejuvenation for the three-year medium-term expenditure. It has been allocated R7.5 million in the first year, R17.9 million next year, and R15 million in the 2011/12 budget allocations.
The power utility's budget for telecoms has been pushed out to next year and cut to R1.5 million.
MetroBus has been allocated R100 000 to upgrade its Microsoft Office licensing, which follows a R400 000 allocation last year for the same solution. The transport system has been given no other IT budget, while last year it spent R2.5 million on a new fleet management system and an additional R100 000 on computer equipment.
Several other departments have been allocated computer equipment budgets; however, few of the actual figures rise above R200 000.
Last year's budget contained far higher IT spend, with the office of the mayor setting out R8.5 million on server and PC refresh and new computers.
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