To reach such levels of success in service delivery through the use of ICT has not been an easy task says Pandelani Munyai, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at SITA. However, according to him, they have built “a proper foundation and infrastructure that can be used for government to deliver services even to the most remote rural areas of South Africa”. He elaborates that the work is not by any means nearly done, as it is the mandate of the Agency to ensure that the government continues to deliver services through proven technologies. “As a result, one of our core functions is to make sure that all applications are highly standardised in such a manner that we not only deliver standard solutions but also avoid the issue of having to deliver services through technology that is dumped on us by other countries,” he says. Consequently, the technologies and applications utilised by SITA are the best technologies that are safe to consume.

 

Stimulating Economic Growth through ICT

SITA is more than merely being about ensuring service delivery between citizens and government. In addition to providing vital connectivity for government departments, Munyai reveals that there are more than 7 000 Public Service offices connected to a Government Private Network that enables Departments to access the many transversal systems and share data across government departments. There are also just over 170 Thusong centres around South Africa that are equipped with computers and other devices that citizens can use to see what services are available online and access such services as citizens. “Previously, citizens at times had queries about certain aspects of service delivery, but there was little or no information available for them to resolve these queries. Essentially, citizens wanted to obtain more information from the government in order to allow interaction between the two parties.” Apart from being the government arm that makes connectivity and interconnectivity service delivery possible, SITA processes and prints all matriculation certificates for the Department of Basic Education as well as invoices for other departments. In SITA’s decade and a half of existence, perhaps the major building block for the organisation has, according to Munyai, been the state-of-the art facility in Pretoria, where all critical government data is localised and housed. This facility includes an up-to-date population register, Government Personnel and Salary System and Basic Accounting System, an indicator of just how crucial and vital an arm of the government and South Africa the Agency is.

 

It is common knowledge that most African countries’ economies are founded on the natural resources that may be found in the country, such as oil or agricultural products. In the 21st century, however, Munyai emphasises that South Africa cannot rely on its mineral wealth, as it has been proven that resource-based economies could fail. For instance, countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America are successful global economic giants not because they are rich in natural resources, but because, long ago, they founded their economic activities on services such as the banking and ICT sectors to name but a few. According to Munyai, South Africa is at a stage of technological advancement where the economy can thrive and be successful without natural resources as the driving economic force. “In order to foster economic growth and development, we are using our superior ICT infrastructure as the backbone of our economy’s engine by creating an enabling environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to conduct business in our own backyard. This has been done through stimulating economic development by allowing ease of access to information on possible business partners and clients, which, previously, would have been difficult to achieve and often meant travelling overseas for this purpose.” What this ultimately means is that, besides allowing more players into an industry; business can be done faster and more easily, resulting in untold economic gains.

 

Leaders Are Made

Munyai has ‘been there and done that’ in so far as being in the ICT space in South Africa is concerned. While he has been phenomenally successful at his craft, he shares with us that he is met by daily challenges which he endeavours as far as possible to turn into successes for himself and SITA. “I believe that a leader is made and not born, in the sense that the environment you find yourself in should be one that creates and shapes your ability as a leader or allows you to be the best leader you want to be. I also believe that, as a leader at SITA, one has to step up to the plate to be able to use their skills and ability to influence their immediate environment. At any given time, you will find yourself going in a particular direction; hence my principle is simple: shape, influence and enable the environment to ensure that you and those around you achieve what you want.”

 

To conclude, he further gives the following advice to the corporate world and South African at large vis-à-vis SITA and related services: “At this point, citizens should be asking, ‘Now that the government has been promising so much, what is it that we are getting?’ Our answer is that, through our efforts, as evidenced by the Thusong centres, we are moving to a space where we want all services to be available online and citizens won’t be required to go to a head office to submit application forms in order to get some or other service from the government. In this way, we will do away with the unfair treatment of citizens and reduce the high incidence of nepotism. Lastly, we want to ensure that, through our service delivery model, we simplify life for citizens. It is about time that they start taking ownership of the organisation, for it is truly their own technological arm of business that they should exploit fully.”