/ 17 May 2004

SA ranks last in e-government survey

South Africa remains last in a survey of 22 countries able to conduct electronic government operations, but this should be seen in the correct context, said Accenture’s Charles Webster on Monday.

”South Africa is the only African country in the survey and was competing against First World countries. In this light it’s not bad at all,” said Webster who as part of Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, surveyed 22 country’s ”e-government” ability.

He said that while the country’s ranking remained stagnant, a lot of work was going on behind the scenes that would facilitate improved e-government capacity in the future.

”There is a lot of back-end development going on,” he said explaining that once this had been completed then connecting the different government departments and municipalities to a central service portal would be a lot easier.

According to Accenture SA senior manager, Isabel Malheiro, the government had expressed an interest in partnering with the private sector in order to meet its goals.

The South African government’s vision is to leverage e-government to structure and render services around life episodes of the South African people, following a series of events, from cradle to grave.

Such services must be accessible to all citizens anytime, anywhere, and through different access devices and media, she said.

”Under the current vision and action plan, the e-government strategy is set to be implemented in six phases over a 10-year horizon.

The government considers the first two phases to be complete,” Malheiro said.

A new version of South Africa’s e-government vision was due shortly, and was expected to involve the establishment of a single point of access to government services any time, any place and by any electronic means.

The eGovernment Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value, study named Canada as the winner for the fourth consecutive year.

Singapore and the United States tied second for their ”online presence”, followed closely by Australia, Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which were tied fourth. France ranked eighth, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom tied for ninth, and Belgium, Ireland and Japan jointly held the eleventh position.

The study was based on results of a survey of 5 000 regular internet users in 12 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, as well as a quantitative assessment of the maturity of e-government services.

”South Africa remained in 22nd place this year, having made little improvement in any of the categories of egovernment maturity. Overall, its maturity improved by a modest five percent,” the report stated.

It noted that South Africa’s greatest improvement was in the customer relationship management arena, which boasted a nine percent increase.

Its service depth score, in contrast, improved by only two percent, said the report.

The study found however, that advances in maturity on the whole had slowed down, as most countries had reached plateaux in terms of innovation, progress and impact related to the breadth and depth of services they offered. – Sapa