Barbara Creecy
Photo by: Duane Daws
Gauteng Finance MEC Barbara Creecy says the Gauteng Provincial Treasury (GPT) will use its R712.6-million budget this financial year to promote clean governance and protect public funds to ensure budgets are used to deliver services to citizens and not siphoned off.
Presenting the 2017/18 budget votes of the GPT and the e-Government (E-Gov) department to the Legislature on Thursday, she said improvements in public finance management and economic transformation were a major focus for the department.
She noted that Gauteng was taking urgent steps to modernise public service and boost reindustrialisation to take advantage of opportunities offered by the fourth industrial revolution.
“This modernisation offers opportunities to improve efficiency and access to public services, develop the transparency and accountability of government and empower citizens to better participate in decision-making,” Creecy said.
In line with this, E-Gov will use its R1.3-billion budget for this financial year to provide 3 000 government sites in the province with broadband through the Gauteng Broadband Network and to create an enabling platform and provide support services to all provincial entities in the design, development and delivery of e-services.
“We will also establish the appropriate governance structures in the province to drive information and communication technology (ICT) priorities, policies, standards and regulations and promote the use of e-government services by employees, business and citizens in the province,” she noted.
As part of the broader plan to protect the provincial government against increasing threats of cyberattacks, the department has also launched its own Government Security Operation Centre (GSOC).
“The GSOC processes and analyses information collected from government ICT systems to determine if there are any suspicious or malicious attempts to disrupt ICT services or to gain access to information that can be used for unlawful purposes. Once detected, the GSOC identifies the sources and proceeds to eliminate the threats,” Creecy said.
“During the previous financial year, over 32-billion ICT interactions were processed. A total of 125-million of these interactions were analysed as potential security threats to our provincial ICT environment. In total, 5 700 security threats were confirmed and all these threats were eliminated,” she stated.
Further, she pointed out that, to give impetus to the provincial Department of Education’s smart schools initiative, it will connect 782 schools to the Gauteng Broadband Network (GBN) in this financial year.
“In E-Gov, the cost for telephony has been reduced from R370 000 in March to R241 000 in May this year. This is a saving of R130 000. We aim to connect a further 375 sites to voice over Internet Protocol this financial year,” Creecy pointed out.
In addition, she noted that the department was fully committed to increasing its contribution to the development of young people in the province.
“Working with the Tshepo 1 Million team in the Office of the Premier, and with private sector partners including Microsoft, SAP, Performanta, Vodacom, FNB, Accenture, Dell and IBM, the department aims to assist approximately 110 000 young people to participate in training, work experience, internship and employment opportunities and programmes over the next year,” she said.