OWN CORRESPONDENT in Cape Town | Wednesday 10.30pm.
Only 60% of South Africa’s computer systems will be year 2000 compliant at the turn of the century if the current pace of solving the year 2000 problem (Y2K) does not pick up, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Castle in Cape Town at the launch of National Y2K Awareness Day — which marks just 500 days until the end of the century when computer clocks may malfunction and not recognise the next millennium — Mbeki said that if the problem is not adequately dealt with, the country could have a disaster on its hands.
South Africa is ranked seventh in the world in terms of Y2K compliance, although only about 17,5% of the country’s computer systems were ready for the millennium.
Post and Telecommunications Minister Jay Naidoo told the National Assembly during an interpolation later on Wednesday: “Government is generally on track to handle the Y2K millennium bug.” Local authorities outside the metropolitan areas, as well as the country’s 800000 small and medium enterprises, were most at risk of being affected, he said. Efforts to correct the problem had to be accelerated.
It has been estimated the bug could cause world-wide losses amounting to $700-billion. South Africa bill is estimated at up to R25 billion to implement all the changes necessary to such equipment as municipal light switches, hospital lung machines, cellular telephones, air traffic control systems, and railways and mining equipment.
A year 2000 decision support centre has been established to create awareness about the problem and to give local businesses the knowledge and tools to deal with the bug.