Over the past two years iSouth Engineering (www.isouth.co.za) developed a comprehensive solution that assists clients with the capital investment processes from the inception of a project or a need, through to the actual implementation of the project and the tracking of its implementation progress.
The software solution that facilitates this process is called CIMS and was developed making use of the very latest in software technology and development methodologies.
Currently, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality as well as the Johannesburg Roads Agency make use of CIMS to assist them with structured and informed decision-making processes involving the prioritisation of their capital expenditure, the structured record-keeping of capital needs and reporting on the actual implementation of projects within a geographically enabled and fully Web-enabled environment.
What sets this process apart from other solutions is the way in which CIMS ensures that all of this takes place in an environment that incorporates probity, accountability, transparency and broad spectrum participation within a paperless environment.
CIMS has successfully assisted the City of Johannesburg with the entire capital planning and implementation processes through the previous two budgeting cycles of local government and was lauded by the city as being an effective and innovative solution to a universal problem. Recognition was recently also given to the City of Johannesburg for CIMS by the Minister for Public Service and Administration, the honourable Geraldine J Fraser-Moleketi by awarding the City of Johannesburg with the prestigious CPSI Public Sector Innovation Award as a runner-up in the annual country-wide competition.
Since the inception of the Municipal Financial Management Act (MFMA) on 1 July 2004, local government has been actively striving towards the modernisation of budget and financial management practises. The MFMA also serves to maximise the capacity of municipalities to deliver services to all its residents, customers, users and investors.
One technical aspect of the modernisation of capital expenditure, that was identified early on, was the use of spatially-oriented systems to assist with the capital investment framework. Most of local government`s planning and implementation are done using maps to display information such as zoning areas, servitudes, hotspot areas, wards, regions and many more.
iSouth Engineering has incorporated GIS and spatially referenced information of projects as an integral part of CIMS without the burden of having to acquire expensive software licences for these types of traditionally syndicated and expensive technologies - thus taking deliberate strides towards moving away from the redundant and inadequate methods of project data representation. Capital project spatial data is updated by the users on the system in terms of both the physical location of the project as well as the area that will be affected by the expenditure.
Once this information is available on CIMS, a multitude of extremely useful statistical data sets can be obtained by comparing project spatial representations to GIS files that contain information such as population densities, traffic congestion, pollution, health risks, power outages and water shortages, to name only a few. By making use of this functionality within CIMS, decision-makers can spend their time efficiently on capital investment planning, and have at their disposal more accurate planning and budgeting data than ever before.
This guarantees that informed decisions can be made in terms of capital expenditure. The recent power outages in the City of Johannesburg can for instance now be addressed directly, by looking at the problem areas spatially and applying capital as required. The degree to which problem areas are addressed can now be evaluated and represented graphically for easy interpretation. Using spatially referenced data to plan annual capital expenditure not only ensures that the funds are distributed optimally throughout specific regions, but it also serves as a platform for reporting back to investors, customers and mayoral committees.
For more information about iSouth, or our Capital Investment Management System, please contact our office or browse our Web site at www.isouth.co.za.
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