

The Department of Communications (DOC) has hit back at claims that Thusong Service Centres are unsustainable, arguing they have aided the lives of millions of South Africans, who are often "in the remotest corners of the country".
The department was responding to an ITWeb article noting that, in the first half of the year, government only managed to ensure the functionality of five of the 100 connected Thusong Service Centres. This lack of connectivity, caused by internal restructuring of the project, prompted ICT veteran Adrian Schofield to state the centres are a failure and unsustainable.
Now the DOC has hit back, saying - while the centres have challenges - these are not insurmountable. "To simply conclude the programme and centres are failures is ill-considered. For to nullify the major impact of the centres on the lives of millions of South Africans, especially in the remotest corners of the country, is unfair."
Vital role
Each of SA's 283 municipalities was meant to have a centre by this year, but there are currently only 183 Thusong centres in 107 local municipalities, which are complemented by 114 integrated mobile units. There is also a network of 41 libraries and 58 telecentres at the centres. However, a year ago, there were 193 operational centres, with plans to add as many as another 140.
How these plans are progressing and the status of the current sites are not known as neither the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), which seems to have overall oversight of the centres, nor the State IT Agency responded to repeated requests for comment.
The DOC says the centres, government's one-stop hubs that serve five million people a year, "play an important role in empowering citizens to access services that make it possible for them to participate as equals in a caring democracy". They are located largely in peri-urban areas and townships, with a specific focus on rural areas of the country, it adds.
Working on it
The department says civil society organisations, community-based groups and small enterprises are represented at these centres, and offer services and information, and work with government on local community development initiatives. "Thusong centres were conceived to give marginalised communities access to information and services, and opportunities to better their circumstances."
However, service delivery requires coordination by all three spheres of government, which the department says has been government's primary focus. It says the vision of the centres acting as hubs to provide services and access to communities "has not been lost".
The DOC notes government set up a national working team under the leadership of the DPSA last year to address the challenges. "The team's work is progressing well and recommendations to address governance, funding and operational challenges facing centres are being developed."
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