ICT low on provincial agenda

By Christelle du Toit, ITWeb senior journalist

Johannesburg, 18 Feb 2008

ICT was low on the provincial agenda last week, with only three out of the seven State of the Province addresses mentioning it at all.

KwaZulu-Natal, North West, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape's premiers all neglected to mention it, while the Free State, Western Cape and Limpopo made at least some mention of ICT.

Gauteng's State of the Province address is taking place today, while Mpumalanga's is scheduled for Friday.

Those premiers who did touch upon ICT issues did so superficially. Free State premier Beatrice Marshoff, addressing the provincial legislature on 15 February, said that, as part of the province's 2010 preparations, the ICT master plan had been finalised. She did not expand on this point.

Marshoff also said the province was working with the governments of India and Germany to promote, among others, the training of graduates in the IT field. Finally, she said a provincial emergency services control room had been finalised, which means the province will be able to shorten its reaction times to emergency calls.

Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, also speaking on 15 February, said a R4 million call centre training facility was poised for completion in Athlone, on the Cape Flats, and would "further strengthen [the province's] ability to corner investment in the business process outsourcing industry".

Furthermore, Rasool said 3 000 call centre trainees would be sourced from the 21 priority areas in the provinces. These areas have been identified based on a need for greater development and focused service delivery. They include Khayelitsha, on the Cape Flats, Nyanga, Oudshoorn, and Kannaland.

Speaking last Thursday, Limpopo premier Sello Moloto said the province's ICT Hub concept has been expanded and renamed Limpopo Living Lab, the core of which is already up and running. He added that the i-Community project, in Mogalakwena, would be rolled out as part of the Living Lab's projects.

The Living Lab is a technological cluster incubator that has been established in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology and authorities from Finland.

The Mogalakwena i-Community project, on the other hand, was launched in 2002 by president Thabo Mbeki and former HP chairman Carly Fiorina, as part of the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development. It aims to spread the use of modern ICT technologies in rural communities to bridge the digital divide.