Councillor Obed Mlaba, Mayor of the eThekwini Municipality, came to local government in ‘94, during the democratisation process of local government. Mr Mlaba was initially appointed Chair of the Council’s Executive Committee during the ‘95 / 96 municipal year and elected Metropolitan Mayor in July 1996. In 2000, after the local government elections, Mr Mlaba was elected the first Durban Unicity Mayor, a position that brought with it the added responsibility of Chairing the Executive Committee. Mr Obed Mlaba holds an MBA in Strategic Marketing Management from the UK-based International Management Centre. Prior to his work in the public sector, Mr Mlaba gained extensive business experience in the fields of human resource management, industrial relations, business development and marketing. Mr Mlaba has worked for such industry giants as the South African Breweries and Eskom.

The Hon. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi is Minister for Public Service and Administration, a position she has held since 1999, prior to which she was the Minister for Welfare and Population Development. After matriculating at a high school in Cape Town, during which time she became involved in politics, and commencing her studies at the University of the Western Cape, she left South Africa to join the ANC in exile while in second year at the university. She was later awarded a fellowship to Harvard University by the Institute of Politics, Kennedy School of Government. Her studies were focused on policy analysis and she investigated aspects of the constitution. While in exile, she was employed by the Lutheran World Federation, before returning to South Africa after the unbanning of the ANC and SACP. Since that time, she has held senior positions in a wide variety of institutions and organisations. Ms Fraser-Moleketi represents South Africa on the Executive Committee and Governing Board of the African Training and Research Centre in Administration (CAFRAD), is Vice-President for Africa, International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) and is Chairperson of the 4th Pan African Conference of Public Service Ministers.

In the past, SITA’s strategies tended to have a strong internal focus, aimed at transforming the organisation to operate with greater efficacy. In contrast, however, SITA’s new strategic direction emphasises a more outward orientated approach. Previous strategies sought to improve SITA as an organisation. Now the focus is shifting to its customers, with specific attention being paid to meeting requirements that will enable government to deliver services more effectively and cost efficiently to the citizens of South Africa. In this session, Llewellyn Jones, will elaborate on SITA’s role and mandate, its strategic objectives and the key initiatives it will be undertaking to realise these. He will touch on infrastructure optimisation and endeavours to modernise public service operations and extend SITA’s service footprint. “This is the year to make a difference,” says Llewellyn.

ICT projects are playing a more strategic role in supporting national strategies for service delivery by the South African government and coupled with unique risks that have been identified within the local ICT industry. A new approach to planning, procurement and implementation of ICT projects by the public sector is now needed to ensure successful delivery of projects, sustainable leveraging of new technology frontiers while simultaneously stimulating the development of a local industry capable of competing with established and emerging ICT giants globally. Jonas Bogoshi unpacks the some of the realities and hard decisions that must be taken by all Public Sector ICT stakeholders to achieve this.

In line with the ICT vision of the Government to make of ICT the fifth pillar of the economy and to position Mauritius as a Regional ICT hub, the National ICT Strategic Plan (NICTSP) 2007-2011 has been adopted at Government level in October 2007. It sets the framework for Government and Private sector interventions through 15 programmes comprising of 124 projects to be implemented over a period of five years. The Hon. Minister will share details of the country’s NICTSP, which is seen as the linchpin and vector for sustainable development of the ICT sector and an important component of the transformation of Mauritius into a knowledge economy. He will also touch on one of the critical issues to be addressed by every Government in the world, namely Information Security and how a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-MU) for Mauritius, as recommended by the NICTSP, has been set up with the collaboration of the Indian Government. The Computer Emergency Response Team for Mauritius (CERT-MU) was launched on 15th of May 2008 and is being implemented in three phases.

An open solution, free from lock-in to proprietary solutions, delivers the key principles of Freedom to Innovate, Integrate, Participate and Leave. Both Open Standards and Open Source Software are increasingly seen as the basic tools to deliver such open solutions. But where do you start? What takes priority? Open Source Software has the potential to be the single greatest discontinuity to the IT market since the Internet itself. It is forecast to account for one third of the total IT market by 2010. For some in the IT supply market it represents a huge opportunity, for others a huge threat. But what about the impact on Government, the user and the citizen? Will it reduce costs and increase level of service? This talk will provide a global perspective of its impact, particularly with eGovernment. It will look at the challenges facing the public sector, and the environment and steps necessary for success.

The presentation given by the Director General of Home Affairs (DHA), Mavuso Msimang, focuses on the overall transformational intervention that has been kicked off at DHA. He will explore the need for executive management buy- in and ongoing support needed to ensure continuous alignment of the initiative with the strategic roadmap. Furthermore he will be emphasising the need to manage the three critical components which are fundamental to the turnaround, namely people, process and technology.

For many years, BT has enjoyed an excellent reputation in the areas of corporate social responsibility and environment management. Recently, as our clients’ interest in environment and social sustainability issues has grown, BT has built a practice which helps customers address their sustainability concerns, particularly as they relate to information technology issues. This presentation will focus on why BT developed a sustainability practice, its Carbon Impact Assessment, and findings from experiences to date.

For many years, BT has enjoyed an excellent reputation in the areas of corporate social responsibility and environment management. Recently, as our clients’ interest in environment and social sustainability issues has grown, BT has built a practice which helps customers address their sustainability concerns, particularly as they relate to information technology issues. This presentation will focus on why BT developed a sustainability practice, its Carbon Impact Assessment, and findings from experiences to date.

In this discussion, panellists will share their experiences and views on the changing role of the CIO in delivering on the vision of a next generation government; the challenges that they face; the skills they will require to deliver the transformation and the actions they will need to undertake to be successful.