Public sector 1

Andre Stelzner, City of Cape Town

South Africa’s National Treasury is working to get government spending under control by cutting unnecessary costs, trimming non-essential spending, and finding smarter ways to run government services and, in doing so, get better value for money. For Andre Stelzner, the City of Cape Town’s chief digital officer, budgetary pressures are the name of the game when you’re working in local government. “Cost optimisation is nothing new. It’s always been an item on the agenda,” he says, admitting that, from an IT perspective, it does mean that once the top priorities have been addressed, there’s not much left over to do what he dubs the “more transformational stuff”.

According to Stelzner, these top priorities include complying with funding regulations and legislation and the conditions for how money is spent and ensuring that the city’s operational technology stack does what it’s supposed to. “We’re currently working on a large-scale core application project, called CAR, to ensure the tech we are deploying is up to date. We’re also upgrading our SAP ERP. These are big projects to ensure that everything is kept up and running, while not exposing the city to any undue risks.”