The Huawei Connect: e-Government Summit South Africa got off to a roaring start at the Huawei Office Park in Johannesburg. The month-long event looked at how the use of Artificial Intelligence, the Huawei Cloud and 5G can help us live in a fully connected and integrated world where every person, home and organisation have access to digital. This leg of the summit looked at e-Government in the form of digitising the services that government provides. This is in line with South Africa’s goal to ensure that all citizens have access to digital technologies by 2024. Achieving this will aid our efforts to become equal players in the fourth industrial revolution and will have a positive impact on our economy, because it will lead to increased productivity and efficiency.
The multiple lockdowns that came with the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the shortfalls of our government systems. South Africans had to rely on online government systems for service delivery and for the most part, were greatly disappointed. For example, many expressed their frustration about not being able to apply for appointments to renew or apply for their driver’s licenses or car license discs, because the Department of Transport website kept crashing.
Huawei’s cloud-based integrated systems will use Artificial Intelligence and will be powered through 5G, so all this can become a thing of the past. Using the e-Government cloud will present significant opportunities for the government to deliver better outcomes for the public more efficiently and effectively. The data analytics and artificial intelligence capability can also help the government to improve services and create a more valuable experience for individuals and businesses by using existing data insights to deliver more personalized services. Additionally, greater data sharing via secure structures increases control, transparency and confidence for individuals about what data is held and how it is used, which contributes to greater trust in the use of government services.
Using the e-Government cloud will provide capabilities for controlling the national data value chain, and ensure the digital sovereignty of South Africa. In addition, it provides a secure platform for creating a digital government that uses inter-government collaboration and data sharing, promoting the development of the digital economy and enabling the intelligent transformation of the country.
Mandla Ngcobo, Chief Information Officer at the Department of Public Service and Administration, agrees. Speaking at the summit, Ngcobo said digitising government services will lead to better service delivery. With digitisation, the lives of South Africans will be improved; bureaucratic red tape and unnecessary forms will be eliminated as a result of the data sharing between departments. Citizens will be able to conveniently access the services from the comfort of their homes or offices, ensuring that valuable working time is not lost in long queues. This will also help the government identify any issues of system failure or corruption that may arise when delivering services, creating a culture of transparency and accountability. — Sphumelele Ndlovu
Visit the Huawei Enterprise South Africa website for more information, https://e.huawei.com/za/solutions/industries/government