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COHESION IN ICT GOVERNANCE
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Through committee-based planning and an emphasis
on knowledge sharing, the Eden District Municipality has
implemented information communication technology (ICT)
governance solutions that are yielded big results.
 The
implementation of ICT governance can have massively positive
knock-on effects, even when implementations are seemingly small.
The Eden District Municipality has proven this by implementing
cohesive policies and governance systems throughout its regional
government offices that are already yielding positive results.
The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is involved in
providing infrastructure and other technology solutions that
form part of the municipality system, which will be completed by
the end of 2009.
Speaking at GovTech 2009, Rhyn Alberts of the Eden District
Municipality said that the regional offices within the Eden ICT
initiative were brought together to discuss the layout of ICT
solutions throughout the region. Key to these discussions was
identifying areas where knowledge and other resources could be
shared.
Alberts said that committee-based discussions took place to
establish these and other common goals shared by the various
municipalities that form part of the Eden District. Attention
was paid, in particular, to economy of scale to deal with the
relatively small budget available for incorporation of a
governance framework.
This led to, for example, the shared hosting of financial and
payroll systems for a number of municipalities which communicate
with a central base using wireless technology and the District's
license from the Independent Communications Authority of South
Africa (ICASA).
Alberts pointed out that if emphasis is placed on sharing,
municipalities can achieve more together by sharing ICT systems
than what they could separately.
According to Alberts, buy-in from the role players within the
District was key to the success of the implementation.
"Knowledge sharing was also important. Seven of the eight
municipalities have the same systems, so they are able to help
each other," said Alberts.
Emile Kaselowski, a PhD student from the Nelson Mandela
Metropolitan University (NMMU) is involved in the District as
part of his studies and was instrumental in the development of a
governance strategy.
He said that a framework was established in the municipality for
better IT governance as part of the focus for his master's
thesis.
"Municipalities are governed by municipal acts, not company
acts," said Kaselowski.
Because of this, he said that governance for municipalities must
be aligned to the relevant municipal requirements and there are
challenges in simply implementing governance solutions that have
been developed specifically for private companies.
An integrated approach to governance was therefore developed for
the Eden District that incorporated best practices frameworks
such as ITIL and COBIT, along with municipal and other
requirements.
In planning the rollout of the project, a phased-approach was
selected.
"We split the implementation of the various systems and controls
into phases, starting with the most critical ones. This allowed
us to target the low-hanging fruit that would have the greatest
effects in the short term," explained Kaselowski.
The solution is currently being implemented, but having a
framework in place is already yielding positive results for the
regional offices within the District that are already seeing the
benefits of governance which intrinsically brings with it
efficiency and improved accountability.
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