The State IT Agency (SITA) has entered into a joint venture with its Belgian counterpart with the aim of tapping into its expertise to help increase service delivery at local government level.
One of the main aims of the partnership with the Centre of Informatics in the Province of Antwerpen and Limburg (CIPAL) is to help SITA achieve operational excellence and enhance integration within local government, says acting CEO Ken Modise.
The partnership between the bodies is part of an agreement signed between the South African and Flanders governments in November 2000. The agreement encourages co-operation in education, arts, culture, science, technology and sport between the governments.
CIPAL is an industry-driven equivalent of SITA and focuses mainly on local government and municipalities.
CIPAL CEO Arthur Phillips says the organisation will assist SITA in expanding and growing the public sector market. "SITA will have access to CIPAL-developed systems for public entities. We will explore appropriate projects in which to partner with SITA and then define the process of assessing business opportunities in which we will jointly become involved."
Modise says the partnership will go a long way in ensuring that SITA achieves its goal of service delivery as it now turns its focus on servicing the 284 municipalities across the country.
"We can learn from the systems implemented in Belgium within their local authorities with a view to improving our services. This is to provide improvements in a number of areas such as enhancing information management, optimising transactional effectiveness for increased throughput and enhancing knowledge management.
"We also aim to provide seamless integration of fragmented infrastructures and contribute towards gaining IT value."
Modise says CIPAL will bring to SITA methodologies and local authority systems to achieve these objectives as well as international benchmarking methods to measure the effectiveness of systems implemented.
"Our aim is to also achieve operational excellence and enhance integration within local government. We also aim to provide seamless integration of fragmented infrastructures and contribute towards gaining IT value."
All procurement will continue to be done through SITA's IT Acquisition Centre (ITAC). Through ITAC, SITA aims to provide local government and municipalities with competitive pricing and ensure the best products and services are provided to public authorities.
CIPAL uses mainframe technology, database software, network infrastructures, laser printing facilities and desktop products that are familiar within SITA.
Modise says SITA has had the opportunity to gain knowledge on how CIPAL uses these systems in delivering services to the public sector in Belgium, as well as how problems common to the public sector are being addressed.
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