As part of its smart city strategy, the city of Johannesburg, South Africa is introducing an integrated information communications technology (ICT) system to provide municipal services – enabling the city to improve the delivery of basic services and to ensure the city has a single view of municipal services and citizens. The program will be run by EOH, Gijima, Accenture, and SAP.
“The city’s ICT infrastructure is obsolete; we need to move to an efficient, automated tech system that’ll improve accountability in municipal operations,” said Cyril Baloyi, the chief technology officer of Johannesburg. “It’s meant to improve operational efficiency.”
The majority of applications will run on a mobile platform, making municipal data transparent and available to the public through an open portal. Employees and residents will be able to view their personal profiles, manage their energy consumption, pay municipal bills, and apply for leave.
City manager, Dr. Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni, said that the solution will be implemented in phases spanning two years, and will include:
- The digitization of HR processes at the metro center, Pikitup, the Johannesburg Social Housing Company and other city entities;
- monitoring and management of the the municipal fleet, including the BRT and Metro buses;
- management of traffic congestion in the inner city; and
- the integration of billing between City Power and Joburg Water by January 2019.
“It’ll harmonize the provision of municipal services, making the city have a unified and strong ICT focus,” added Lukhwareni. “This implies a conscious effort to use ICT to transform the general quality of life for residents.”
