The South African government is steadily ramping up its investment in ICT, although progress on many key projects that were meant to transform the country's public sector remains agonisingly slow.
A changing political landscape, a beleaguered State IT Agency (SITA) and a shortage of key technology skills have all hampered the progress on projects such as the National Treasury's Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) and the Department of Home Affairs 'Who Am I Online?' some 15 years after they were initiated.
Despite these woes, government ICT spending is growing at a faster rate than private sector technology spending. The public sector is expected to account for nearly a quarter of the $11.5 billion in IT spending anticipated in SA during 2011. Public sector IT spending in SA will grow 10% to $2.7 billion this year as government invests in infrastructure and speeds up e-government projects, according to IDC.
“Two or three years ago, we made a decision to shift resources and focus more heavily on government,” says Mteto Nyati, MD of Microsoft SA. “Since then, we have sustained a growth rate of 50% a year in the public sector.”
The bulk of this growth is not coming from the high-profile megaprojects but from government departments putting basic infrastructure such as e-mail and collaboration tools in place.
Many of the big IT projects were put on the backburner because they were interrupted by a global economic meltdown as well as political changes within SA, says Jan Bouwer, managing executive for health and public service at Accenture SA. There are signs that these projects are starting to get back on track.
You will never be able to deliver education or healthcare without the right ICT infrastructure in place.
Mteto Nyati, Microsoft SA
But government spending isn't as easy to tap as it once was, with the public sector becoming a more discerning buyer.
“The recession has had an adverse effect on government spending across the world,” says Ahmed Simjee, client executive at IBM SA. “Governments are expected to do more with less. Vendors have to be creative and help government get more value out of its IT.”
Industry observers say a lack of a national strategy for ICT in government means systems remain fragmented, with little coordination between departments that could benefit from sharing information.
Although many initially looked to SITA to provide guidance, the agency has itself lacked direction because of its high turnover of executive management.
“There is a silo mentality and government departments tend to do their own thing. We could capitalise on technology much more effectively if we break down the silos,” Bouwer says.
For example, if the Department of Home Affairs were to clean up and share its population register, it could streamline the delivery of services such as welfare, unemployment insurance and road accident fund payouts.
Finding direction
SITA was established in 1999 to streamline procurement of technology goods and services for national and provincial government as well as provide certain centralised services such as hosting and connectivity to government departments. It was also meant to drive interoperability and standardisation of systems across government.
Instead, the agency has found itself under fire from the very beginning from its government clients and private sector suppliers alike. Minister for public service and administration Richard Baloyi summed up SITA's problems as follows in his 2011/2012 budget vote speech: poor service delivery, weak procurement processes, perceived high costs, a high turnover of executive leaders and poor governance.
Perhaps most concerning of all are the allegations of financial mismanagement and even corruption that have plagued projects such as a smart card tender for Home Affairs. Cabinet last year introduced a three-year strategy to turn the agency around and realign it with its mandate under the SITA act.
The first step in the turnaround strategy was to appoint new board members and fill long vacant executive management positions at SITA. The new appointments are an important step towards restoring the organisation's stability and strengthening its leadership, says SITA's acting GM of corporate communications, Amitha Ramlal.
Some of the new appointments include Blake Mosley-Lefatola as CEO and Khumbudzo Ntshavheni as COO. The remaining vacancies, including CFO and executive: ICT service, should be filled this year. The new management team will oversee SITA's transformation into government's primary systems integrator (PSI).
As a PSI, SITA must be able to draw on solutions, services and products from the ICT industry and from its own resources, and then put them together as business solutions for its clients in government.
The integration work that it will do behind the scenes will facilitate information-sharing and management across line departments.
By working with the private sector in PPPs, government benefits from a fixed-price for labour and IT services.
Tebogo Mphuti, Tasima
The vision is to move beyond a compartmentalised bricks and mortar approach to service delivery towards a 'single' public service that is highly integrated, standardised and seamless, says Ramlal.
National Treasury's IFMS, perhaps the largest project that SITA has undertaken in its 12-year history, will be the proving ground for SITA as the PSI for government.
“The IFMS started out seven years with a lot of promise to help industry growth and create local capacity,” Bouwer says. “It could now be the project that gets SITA back on track.”
Cabinet initiated the IFMS in 2005 to replace government's legacy transversal applications with newer technologies. These ageing mainframe systems include the Basic Accounting System, the Personnel and Salary System, as well as the Logistics Management System, which are used by most government departments to run their back-office functions.
“When completed, the IFMS will consolidate and renew government's back office applications,” Ramlal says.
By replacing the older systems with modern technology, the National Treasury hopes government will be able to reduce costs and improve service delivery. The integration challenges are immense since government is mixing and matching packaged software such as the SAP HR solution with custom-developed applications such as the asset management module. Government argues that its needs are so unique and complex that no single off-the-shelf solution could meet them.
Models of best practice
The Asset Management Module was implemented at two lead sites - National Treasury and Limpopo Provincial Treasury - during May 2010. More sites went live in the first quarter of 2011.
Baloyi introduced the HR Management Module for the public service at the Department of Public Service and Administration earlier this year. More sites will follow during the rest of 2011 and in 2012.
The roll-out of the IFMS hasn't proceeded as quickly as expected, although the pace is picking up, says SAP SA's director of strategic industries, Mohamed Cassoojee.
Among the biggest challenges for the IFMS project are change management and integration of the custom-developed and packaged software that will make up the IFMS. A shortage of skills could prove challenging as the implementation starts in more provinces and departments.
The burning question is whether government can justify spending on ICT solutions in the face of competing priorities such as healthcare, education and welfare. ICT vendors insist that technology can help government do better in its core business of service provision if it is used efficiently and effectively.
“The last election showed that there is a rising demand for service delivery from the public,” says Cassoojee. “The only real way for government to deliver services is by putting back-end systems in place that improve business processes and automate services.”
Makano Mosidi, public sector executive for Dimension Data, says government is shifting from seeing technology primarily as a way to automate transactions towards seeing it as an enabler of service delivery.
“You will never be able to deliver education or healthcare without the right ICT infrastructure in place,” agrees Nyati. ”It is an enabler for everything government does.”
IT will be key to driving new government policies and initiatives such as the National Health Insurance scheme, adds Bouwer. Without the right demographic information at its fingertips, government will not be able to plan properly for this sort of project.
The South African Revenue Service (SARS) is often held up as the best practice model that other government departments should emulate. The agency's investments in technology have enabled it to improve its efficiency in the back-office while offering a high level of service to the public. Last year, more than 2.2 million South Africans filed their tax returns online using the SARS e-Filing system and most of these returns were processed in less than 24 hours.
“There are some departments that have embraced e-government as a way to make life easier for the taxpayer,” says Tebogo Mphuti, CEO of Tasima, the IT company responsible for running the National Traffic Information System (eNatis) on behalf of the Department of Transport.
“The electronic submission of tax returns is a classic example. It has enhanced service delivery and has helped improve compliance with tax laws. It has also reduced the margin of error by removing human intervention.”
Soon South Africans will also be able to renew vehicle licences online through the eNatis system, Mphuti says.
Technology has a massive role to play in even the most underdeveloped rural areas, says Bouwer. The high penetration rate of cellular phones means e-government services needn't be for the rich and middle-class alone since simple text messaging services can be used to interact with people who don't have access to PCs.
For its part, SITA has packaged a wireless application service provider platform that it hopes will help government departments reach citizens with basic services and communications using text messages.
The solution integrates with government mainframe applications so that departments can send SMS alerts to citizens who have applied for services as well as allow citizens to query the status of an application by SMS.
Partnerships needed
The single biggest challenge government faces as it rolls out complex technology projects and tries to keep its infrastructure humming is a shortage of technology skills.
“Government has serious challenges when it comes to ICT skills. There are not enough skills available within the public sector,” says IBM's Simjee.
This means government must work with the ICT industry in partnerships that range from simple service and consulting agreements through to outsourcing contracts and public-private partnerships (PPPs). Government will need to look towards real partnerships with industry to harness ICT's potential for service delivery, says Mosidi.
In addition to technical skills, the private sector is also able to provide financing for new solutions to cash-strapped government departments and agencies. Private sector partners could also help government optimise its use of ICT assets for service delivery, Mosidi says. For example, town councils are looking for opportunities to commercialise their fibre networks.
By working with the private sector in PPPs, government benefits from a fixed-price for labour and IT services, says Mphuti. “It takes away many complications because government is buying a turnkey solution,” he adds.
The eNatis system funds itself out of licence fees and is not a financial burden on the Department of Transport, Mphuti says.
Mphuti believes that political will is the key to a successful PPP. A PPP must also have a business champion who will be there even if the political administration changes, as well as clear financial commitment by the department or agency involved.
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