The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) is stepping in to help the Eastern Cape Provincial Government (ECPG) with the development of a plan for its ICT framework.
This follows a Daily Dispatch report, which stated the ECPG had to withdraw its ICT plan after discovering the strategy document was plagiarised from an international document.
The ECPG reportedly confirmed that the only parts that weren’t a direct copy of another document were the projects and location. The document has subsequently been withdrawn from government structures and institutions, according to a provincial spokesperson.
Yoliswa Makhasi, director-general at the DPSA, said as the custodian of the government ICT policy and strategy in the public service, the department wants to create an environment for the positioning of ICT as a strategic tool for public administration, including ICT governance in the public service.
“In 2017, Cabinet approved the National e-Government Strategy, which looks at various aspects regarding the use of ICT to improve internal operations in the public service, as well as delivery of services to the public.
“This follows the adoption of the Corporate Governance of ICT Policy Framework in 2012.”
According to Makhasi, the framework is based on global best practices and puts emphasis on the need to ensure ICT investment is aligned with departmental or provincial business objectives. It also aims to ensure ICT-related business risks are optimised, departmental or provincial resources are optimised, and benefits of investing in ICT are realised.
Imitation fail
Even though the adage holds that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, analysts say the outcome of adopting a plagiarised ICT strategy would have spelled disaster for the Eastern Cape on a matter relating to intellectual property (IP) and ICT development.
Derrick Chikanga, IT services analyst at Africa Analysis, says the legal implications would have come from the original author of the document, as the incident by the ECPG is similar to piracy of someone’s IP that would have attracted hefty penalties in court.
Secondly, Chikanga believes adopting a plagiarised document would have meant adopting outdated policy and strategies. “This is a document that was penned five years ago, with strategies that might have been overtaken by events already. As such, the province might have actually adopted policies that would not have a significant impact on the provincial goals from an ICT perspective.”
For Jon Tullett, senior research manager for cloud/IT services at the IDC, the major issue with the Eastern Cape government’s ICT plagiarism blunder is lack of transparency.
“Strategies are copied all the time; that’s what best practice means,” states Tullett. “But aside from possible intellectual property issues, whoever copied the strategy should have disclosed that it had been sourced externally, and made it clear why the older strategy document was applicable to the EC’s needs. Or, as may be the case, it was just laziness.”
Tullett notes that at worst, the implication would have been that there would be an inappropriate strategy that would lead to service delivery failures and cost overruns.
At best, it would be a decent strategic fit and no-one would know, he says. “A related concern is that South African government departments, from top down, have a track record of doing a lot of long-term ICT strategy work shopping, and relatively little actual execution. It’s easy to do round after round of strategy white papers, but at some point you have to start delivering against the needs of your constituents and being held accountable for meeting strategic and tactical targets.”
National vs provincial
Commenting on why different provincial governments follow a different ICT strategy instead of the national government blueprint, Chikanga explains that the national ICT strategy focuses on the broader objectives that must be achieved at national level.
These, he says, include equality and inclusivity; increased access to connectivity, particularly by marginalised communities; social and economic development; and user and data protection.
This national strategy, however, does not provide a clear roadmap of how these objectives will be achieved. “As such, provinces are allowed to establish their own strategies outlining how they plan to achieve their own ICT goals and objectives.”
Tullett points out that the national strategy should set overarching directions, and then provincial strategies translate them into the context of their own environments. “Since each has different socio-economic needs, it follows that strategies need to accommodate that flexibility.”
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