As all Gauteng provincial departments eye information and communication technology (ICT) as an enabler for their respective modernisation initiatives, the Department of Finance has moved to develop the terms for a committee to guide the alignment of the various project ambitions.

Gauteng Finance MEC Barbara Creecy said on Thursday that the terms of reference for a broadband committee were currently being developed to oversee the activities of the R1.2-billion province-wide Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN) currently being rolled out.

With the 18-month design and roll-out of the next-generation network and a core network well under way, the focus was now on ensuring that all ICT projects across the various provincial governments were aligned to promote greater government efficiency, stimulate innovation and knowledge creation and lay the basis for higher levels of economic growth.

Speaking to Engineering News Online on the sidelines of a post-State of the Province Address cluster briefing, in Johannesburg, she said the broadband committee, chaired by Gauteng Premier David Makhura, would incorporate MECs of the relevant provincial departments, including Education, Health and Economic Development.

The GBN project, which had become “more important than ever before”, envisaged linking all the mass broadband and Wi-Fi initiatives under way to the GBN, particularly as the Gauteng provincial government facilitated ancillary projects such as telemedicine, elearning, egovernment and ehealth, besides others.

“We are committed to building an integrated Gauteng city region characterised by social cohesion and economic inclusion. This is a complex undertaking that requires public service institutions to work across boundaries in order to meet the ever growing demands of our people,” Creecy said.

With ICT emerging as a key pillar for government to roll out and accelerate improved services to citizens and bolster economic growth for South Africa’s most populous province, the Gauteng Provincial Treasury and the Gauteng Department of Finance aimed to intensify efforts to transform the State and governance and modernise public service to increase operational efficiencies and improve the delivery of services to the people of Gauteng.

Radical innovation in egovernance, which remained at the centre of Gauteng’s modernisation and transformation programme, could only be meaningful to citizens if it saved time and money and improved access to all the necessary government services without the need to frequently visit government offices, she said.