WORK IN PROGRESS

As with national government, provincial offerings in the portal department continue, where they exist at all, to be very much of the “work in progress” variety. An Accenture report on customer service in government indicates that the sense that South Africa continues to lag behind is not imagined. When it comes to the sort of in-depth, fully-integrated and mature delivery models that drive successful e-government implementations, we’re still very much stuck in second gear – Phase II of the Batho Pele Gateway strategy, projected to move us closer to genuine transactional capability, has not yet grown into a fully-fledged plan of action. If it feels like there’s maybe too much talking going on, that consultation is over-riding dynamism to the point of suffocating it, that’s only because there’s more than a grain of truth to it. And the key to unlocking that problem continues to lie in the skills and infrastructure cupboard. As long as key positions within the public service remain unfilled, we’re going to battle – good government-to-government strategy is the foundation upon which success is built.