SA’s e-government record is chequered, with many factors marring the journey including delays, duplication, lukewarm political leadership, disunity in the banks, and even corruption. What will save us?


G2G IS EGOVERNMENT

Unlike the other main forms of e-government (government-to-citizen or G2C, and government-to-business or G2B), the focus with G2G is not on services. While it is possible to list a great number of services for G2C and G2B (refer to the applicable chapters for examples), the task is possible but far less simple with G2G (refer ‘The elusive G2G service’ alongside).

Put differently, G2C and G2B are about the outcomes of e-government, while G2G is predominantly about its architectural inputs – the links between government departments, state agencies, functional clusters and supra-entities such as the National Treasury.

In fact, the former two channels are utterly dependent on the latter in order for them to function properly. The technological underpinnings and design principles of e-government must be sound or e-services won’t work at all. In short, G2G is the heart of e-government.

Naturally then, the technologies relevant in a G2G discussion are very di erent from those belonging in G2B and G2C discussions. This chapter looks at the design choices, roadmaps and technologies employed in best-practice G2G and pits SA’s progress against the frontrunners.


THE ONLY GOOD GOVERNMENT…

THE ELUSIVE G2G SERVICE The list of intra-governmental services is a short one, with examples falling mainly within the strictly un-sexy and below-the-bonnet category of middleware messaging and service intermediation. But it’s even harder to envisage inter-governmental services, given the autonomy of governments and the secrecy attached to their processes. Wikipedia provides the following example: “To combat Internet fraud, 124 heads of government signed the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime in 2000. A programmatic offshoot of this, the Global Programme on Transnational Organised Crime (http://www.uncjin.org /CICP/cicp.html) was established to improve information sharing and promote international technological cooperation on combating crime”.

If G2G is e-government proper, it should be asked: “What are the architectural design considerations that make for good e-government?”

The European Commission states in its second five-year plan of action for e-government (2011 to 2015) that, “for many, the best government is an unnoticed one”. It’s a laudable way of thinking and a very useful way to approach the concept of e-government: the ICT framework and principles that underpin e-government must work towards automating citizens and businesses interaction with government, with such smooth effeciency that its presence is inconspicuous.

It’s true that, in a developing country like South Africa, it is quite the opposite. e-Government is used in quite a primitive fashion, eschewing automation and integration for one-way electronic information dissemination. Communications Minister Roy Padayachie recently conceded that governments in this boat use ICTs mainly to provide information on their programmes and services. He was speaking at the launch of a range of low-power broadcasting stations and a broadband project in Msinga, KwaZulu-Natal.

But Padayachie also gave recognition to the more advanced roles for ICT-enabled public service projects (and for government’s use of ICT and e-government). They are the promotion of access to government services (not just content), and facilitation of business and citizen activities, inasmuch as government has a role to play in these.

This line of thinking is welcomed in countries such as SA, which have a long e-government journey ahead of them. It recognises that evolved e-government is less about government and more about citizens. This kind of government has moved on from information provision (brochure-ware websites, in-bound call centres and broadcasts) and develops services that can be accessed as, how and when their constituencies choose.

The ‘primitive’ version of e-government is understandable in countries with a digital divide. But the technology migrations that such governments will inevitably embark on should still accommodate the future. Even if the state is more concerned with housing and education, its ICT framework should be:
• Standard (to accommodate services and technologies that haven’t been developed yet)
• Leading-edge (to prevent early obsolescence)
• Modular (to enable piecemeal migration) and
• Government-wide (to ensure total integration and automation of services).


STATE OF THE REPUBLIC

Against this backdrop, where do we peg the Republic? Are we at an advanced stage of our e-government development or in the infant stages? Sadly, it’s the latter. For more than a decade (since 1998), the South African government, and in particular the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), has done little more than to entertain the rami cations of a comprehensive Information Management, Systems and Technology (IMST) strategy, and the means to realise it.

This year, again, a single government ICT and e-commerce strategy was mulled under the auspices of the DPSA.

“In the absence of such a strategy, individual departments have found it difficult to define their own IMST strategy,” said Minister of Public Service and Administration Richard Baloyi, at the Government IT Officers Council (GITOC) Summit in April 2011. “Most departments (have been pursuing) their policy agendas independently, and IT systems were developed and operated to meet only departmental policy objectives.

In the absence of e ective policy coordination, IMST strategy remained incoherent and the cost implications were enormous.”

SOME SUCCESSES SA has made progress in isolated instances. At GovTech 2009 in Durban, Zaid Aboobaker, the e-government chief director in the Office of the Government CIO (OCGIO), asserted several instances of progress (a similarly handy list did not seem in evidence at GovTech 2010). But various departments were at various levels of maturity, he conceded, and overall maturity would elude the country for years. Instances of progress include: • A move away from information-oriented to transactional Web sites • Real commitment to change at the highest levels of government (this is questionable in view of successive State of the Nation addresses largely ignoring ICT) • Some strong national projects providing guidance to provincial and municipal examples (e.g. SARS e-filing and big projects in Gauteng, Durban and Ekurhuleni) • General acknowledgement of the importance of working inter-jurisdictionally, called cooperative governance • Moving toward a single public service model • Dark fibre all around SA • IFMS project (corporate shared services) • The growing multi-channel capability of contacting government (e.g. centralised contact centre, Batho Pele Gateway, in-person locations, Public Internet Terminals, Thusong multi-purpose community centres).

Baloyi acknowledged that a single consolidated government ICT strategy remains elusive, with the following problems continuing to bedevil government ICT:
• Widespread use of incompatible and unintegrated platforms and applications;
• Incomprehensive and disorganised sharing and re-use of information;
• Lack of a broad set of technology skills needed to maintain systems;
• Non‐standard priorities and approaches to the use of IMST;
• Unnecessary duplication of ICT functions and systems between line departments and across spheres of government; and
• Stalled, and sometimes failed implementation of e‐government to improve service delivery.

However, -+early gains were squandered when SA slipped in global e-government rankings in 2010. The country was the e-government maturity leader in Africa in 2008, with a world ranking of 61. Within two short years, it dropped a staggering 36 positions to number 97, and now holds the fourth position in Africa, following Tunisia (66), Mauritius (77) and Egypt (87).

It is not so much a case of being overtaken or being beaten, but of losing the plot all on our own. In a game where technological advances happen rapidly and relentlessly, you have to run just to stand still. The ladder of progress is a downward-moving escalator, and we’re still at the bottom because our leaders forgot to climb.

Why did government allow this to happen? The following factors contributed:
• A management vacuum leading to growing dissatisfaction with SITA in the industry and among its clients;
• Tender irregularities and other matters of governance;
• The accelerating pace of change in the Internet industry; and
• Continuing fallout between SITA and the OGCIO.

Citing “worthy efforts” by the DPSA, Department of Communications, GITOC and OGCIO, Baloyi nevertheless acknowledged the deteriorating state of ICT in government, and set some expectations for the summit, stating (again) that a single ICT strategy for government needed GITOC and SITA’s most urgent attention.

What will assure the success of it this time?


PICKING UP THE PIECES

Human issues

No plan is complete without change management: it is the task of the DPSA to marshal and motivate SITA, which issues tenders, and procure technology for government IT, the OGCIO, and GITOC – both of which sit on the client’s side. The OGCIO has frequently been at odds with SITA, leading to the departure in 2010 of GCIO Michelle Williams as SITA’s deputy chairman – while retaining her job in the OGCIO, and the appointment of (yet another) CEO and COO for SITA by Baloyi, amid much cynical mutterings in the media and market.

Naturally, with the suspicions and skills deficiencies surrounding SITA’s performance, tensions between the parties will require strong ministerial leadership to resolve. The most recent turnaround strategy will be watched with hope, but improper leadership of state-owned enterprises, one of the banes of South African public life, would appear to be a near-insurmountable stumbling block in the way of the objective of proper technologically- enabled public service delivery.

So we’ll see.


Technology roadmap and architecture

A technology roadmap and architecture for e-government has been discussed at length before, at public forums such as GovTech. However, the current faltering on our e-government journey makes it necessary to revisit them.

GOVERNMENT-WIDE ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE At its most fundamental, on a level below the afore-mentioned service intermediation layer, greenfields e-government starts with a government-wide enterprise architecture framework (GWEA). A GWEA serves to ensure non-duplication of future e-government systems, as well as interoperability through standards and specifications for business architecture, application and data architectures, and technology architecture. Reports indicate that version 1.2 of the GWEA was endorsed by GITOC in June 2009, but Williams reported no progress on it being signed o . Indeed, she says, departmental progress on establishing its own enterprise architectures (EAs) was woeful. Nevertheless, an EA, whether horizontal or vertical, is not the be-all and end-all of e-government. As noted in the section above, service intermediation can also bridge the divide between departments. Yet even that is an issue, says Williams. “Every department must have a Master Systems Plan and document their processes, but progress has been similarly poor.”

In his address at the 2009 GovTech conference, Aboobaker presented a comprehensive vision of the technologies and strategy supporting e-government, on behalf of Williams. He announced a “topology” on which departments would launch selective foundational e-services – all of them involving exciting collaboration opportunities between departments and agencies – in support of government’s ‘e-inclusion’ agenda.

The  first six, all involving multiple departments, were to include:
a. ID document application
b. Applications to register childbirth
c. Foster child grant applications
d. Old-age pension applications
e. Applications for maintenance orders
f. Applications for notice of death

The project would include an integrated channel management strategy to achieve the collaborative outcomes envisaged above, and a single point of entry into the government e-system.

This was a wise move as it acknowledges the impossibility of fork-lifting out all of government enterprise architecture, replacing it with a new baseline for e-government. Instead, an intermediation strategy would work better, allowing the retention of government’s investment in systems while tying them into a new Web-based front-end with service automation.

To enable integrated online, telephonic and physical as well as cross-departmental channels, said Aboobaker, departmental databases would be integrated. A service intermediation layer and integration initiative would be coupled with a channel management strategy involving a CRM portal, call centre and walk-in centre.

With the DPSA as the sponsor, Aboobaker said it was necessary to re-establish e-government Steering Committees involving DGs from departments that would continue to own their particular e-services. The project management o ce would reside within SITA, and the work streams would include Architecture, Process & Analysis (document and process automation and work ow), Data Integration and Federation, Service Delivery Training & ICT Enablement, Portal Infrastructure, and Identity Management Infrastructure.

Delivery channels would run the gamut of e-mails, portals, mobiles, interactive voice responses, ATMs and kiosks, call centres, and self-service channels. Industry was to be engaged in tenders and discussions.

Once the  first services were e-enabled and proven, the DPSA-led e-government drive would ramp up to the next 100 services to go online.

These are all splendid ideas. However, unless and until SITA, the OGCIO and GITOC sort out their differences, it will only ever remain in ‘idea land’ and never come to fruition.


WHAT DO GOVERNMENT IT OFFICERS WANT?

It’s clear from Baloyi’s comments this year that we are not substantially further in our e-government journey than the previous several years. And while Aboobaker’s roadmap makes for wonderful reading, it is entirely possible that more motivation is needed to kick-start matters.

So, one might ask, what do government CIOs and IT o cers want?

From November 2010 to February 2011, GITOC polled 46 national and provincial government IT officers (GITOs), to determine their priorities. The result is as follows:



As far as can be determined from the somewhat jumbled-looking lists (it doesn’t seem helpful to mix up national and provincial lists), ITOs want it all. Not SOA (10th on the technology list), to  fix what’s wrong, but shiny new enterprise architecture (1st) on which to build their e-government (3rd). Well, dream on. Baloyi names cost management as a critical driver of any further government IT activity, along with citizen access.

Making do might moreover be the best we can do in the continuing economic palaver anyway, what with job losses to be made up and election promises to be ful lled. Hence we  nd the list on the left more apposite. It recognises the fact that, given the circumstances, government entities should look at business process mapping and improvement, and integration and service intermediation before they turn to new enterprise architecture. The GWEA idea is too big to pull o under the circumstances.


WHAT IS NEEDED?

As stated above, what is needed for this to work and become a government-wide movement, is unity of purpose, a clean house at SITA, and an iterative development roadmap focused on ongoing new wins and driven by agile, cost-conscious methodologies.

Or we could keep revisiting the same questions.