The SA government plans to significantly boost access to its services through a range of different channels, including cellphones, the Internet and walk-in centres. It's part of a global trend towards e-government.
But you won't be able to register births or pay fees yet. Government is still wrestling with problems such as low Internet penetration in SA and system integration across numerous departments and agencies.
In its 2004 report on e-government leadership, consulting firm Accenture ranks SA as last out of 22 countries for e-government maturity. With a score of 18%, SA lags world e-government leader Canada by 62%.
The report says government is only just in the second phase of a 10-year, six-phase strategy. This year should, however, see improvement as the new e-Government Gateway portal begins operating as a starting point for delivery, says Accenture.
"A starting point for e-government is simple - people don't want to have to wait in line and fill out a bunch of paper forms. That should be the first order of business. After that, it's about managing flows of information, people and money," says SAP global Public Services portfolio head Ingo Hoffman.
E-government in SA is still in its beginning stages, which involves putting static information online for citizens to access. As e-government takes shape, citizens can expect more interactive services to be introduced, such as online applications and payments.
Eventually, citizens will be able to interact with, and access services from, any government agency through the portal.
The government department that is the most advanced in implement ing e-government services is the SA Revenue Service (Sars), which has moved beyond online information only, to offering facilities for electronic transactions. No longer do taxpayers have to stand in queues to file returns and pay taxes - they can do so through Sars' e-filing portal. Among the benefits to citizens and businesses are faster turnaround times on submissions and more detailed records of returns and payments made to Sars.
Behind the scenes, Sars has also invested heavily in enterprise applications that boost efficiency and improve the access its employees have to information. For example, the revenue collection agency has implemented a customer-relationship management system from Siebel that gives it a single view of individual and business taxpayers.
This system allows tax advisers and call-centre agents easy access to the full taxation status of their clients, which was until now locked up in six separate tax and customs systems. Whereas it used to take up to two weeks to gain a complete picture of a company's tax situation, staff can now receive this information within 20 seconds.
Another government agency that has made a successful move into e-government is the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which counted heavily on its technology to support every facet of the 2004 national election. For instance, voters could check whether they were registered by accessing the IEC's website, SMS service or call centre.
In the voter registration weekend of January 24-25 alone, the website received about 250 000 hits.
The main factor hampering e-government services in SA is a fixed-line teledensity of less than 9%. To address this gap, government is relying on innovations such as multipurpose community centres, which deliver a one-stop service for multiple government functions, as well as through Internet cafés run by the SA Post Office.
SMS technology offers one of the best ways for government to provide e-government services to its citizens, says Cellsys SMS Cellular Services CEO Rob Airey. A number of municipalities have added SMS services to their technology mix.
Most government departments have much work to do on modernising their IT systems before they have the right platforms in place for e-government. There is little sharing of information between different departments, most of which have disparate systems and business processes.
Another challenge lies in changing the culture of government organisations, transforming employees from task-orientated workers into service-driven knowledge workers, says Faritec public-sector executive Kenny Nkosi.
