Officials within South Africa's Gauteng provincial government have lauded the e-government programme saying it will help to fast-track the provision of broadband connectivity to link up government departments, agencies and service delivery points.

The programme, which is already being implemented in the province, will be launched officially at a two-day ICT Summit in Johannesburg.

The summit will cover e-learning, e-health and other ICT investments that have the potential to improve service delivery reads a statement from government.

Attendees will include technology experts from Kenya and Rwanda, as well as representatives from industry stalwarts like SAP Africa, Telkom, Google, and Microsoft.

Finance MEC Barbara Creecy said the Gauteng provincial government has recognised the immense benefits of implementing an e-government strategy as it has been proven to be a catalyst in reducing costs, promoting transparency and accountability, improving public administration and promoting economic development.

"The summit will share the vision of the Gauteng City Region in terms of e-government strategy, as well as look at progress made in implementing the strategy," said Creecy.

The provincial government says it wants to mirror countries like Australia, Korea and Singapore, who it considers to be leaders in the use of ICT for service delivery.

Poor connectivity delaying implementation

Qedani Mahlangu, the provincial MEC for Health, said the migration from paper to electronic systems has empowered doctors across the province with the ability to access patient history in realtime using tablet devices.

"In the end patients are not going to wait as they do for files and our employees won't have to look through papers. Broadband connectivity on the other hand still has to be fixed."

Mahlangu says the Finance MEC is already working to address broadband connectivity challenges, including healthcare professionals having to rely on 3G cards to access e-solutions.

While there appears to be challenges with equipping hospitals with broadband connections, the digitisation of all patients records at public hospitals, introduction of smart classrooms in public schools and digitisation of the procurement systems (e-invoicing, online registration of companies, e-recruitment) appears to be well under way, authorities have said.

The MEC for Transport Ismail Vadi also emphasised the benefits of digitisation. "Drivers license testing centres are now using electronic money collection systems and residents are able to get receipts and we can then monitor the movement of money and prevent corruption."

Vadi also noted that the department has also computerised the learners license tests which allows candidates to receive their results immediately after submitting their answers.