The South African national government's total ICT spend is set to grow 2.9% by 2010/11, going from R6 billion in 2005/6, to R8 billion, says BMI-TechKnowledge in its latest report.
Lesley-Anne Dos Santos, IT research analyst and co-author of the report, says major demands are placed on government to deliver effective and sufficient services to the public and businesses alike.
Government budgeted R35 billion to spend on ICT over the 2007/2008 financial year, she says.
"This is obviously a large amount of money, which, if well spent, could lead to a significant difference in the overall efficiency of service delivery."
The areas where government is focusing most of its spend includes business intelligence, voice over Internet services, e-government, free open source software and overall mobility, she notes.
Projects under way include the Integrated Financial Management System, set to streamline financial management, human resources and supply chain management systems at national and provincial level, and the Batho Pele Gateway, a portal to the South African government's online presence, she says.
A key objective is to ensure the adoption of Open Document Format across all government departments in an effort to allay compatibility issues, she says.
Dos Santos points out that government also has a major initiative to integrate, as despite the planned increased expenditures, national government departments still work under insufficient and tight ICT budgets.
Government CIOs and specifically ICT departments are struggling with budgetary constraints, she comments.
"Even though a portion of government's ICT budget goes towards training and improving ICT skills, more focus needs to be on this issue and staff retention is a huge problem."
Government cannot compete with the private sector in terms of salaries, she notes.
In order to drive change in government, key areas need to be concentrated on, where benefits can be quickly demonstrated by moving to free software, she adds. Benefits include increased productivity, less downtime and improved change management.
Research methodology for BMI-T's "ICT in Government" reports includes face-to-face and telephonic interviews with the various government departments, as well as ICT spend numbers received from National Treasury.
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