By Karabo Ntanzi
Government Information and Communications Systems (GCIS) hosted their annual National Intersectoral Meeting in Kimberley to benchmark the effectiveness of the Thusong Centres.
The one-stop government service centres were established in 1999 to redress the imbalances of the past by bringing services and information closer to the people.
One hundred and ninety two delegates from all nine provinces attended the three days meeting. Representatives came from National and Provincial government departments, municipalities, Non-profit organisations and corporate services including, Gems, Old Mutual and MTN.
The assembly point for the first day was at Moremogolo FET College, followed by a walk to the Kimberley Thusong Service Centre situated at Tlhokomelo.
A networking session was held at Flamingo Casino, where MEC for Youth, Women, Disability, Communications and E-Government, Venus Blennies, highlighted government gains through the Thusong Centres but indicated the challenges.
She said that to enable the centres to strengthen service delivery in the country. the centers need to be upgraded to the current age of Digitization and 4IR. “We must ensure that all devices in these centres are connected to a reliable internet connection, ” she further elaborated.
MEC mentioned broken equipment that needs to be in a usable condition. “In all of the centres within the nine regions, ICT equipment is purchased from different suppliers, who are stationed far from the immediate beneficiaries”.
She added a lack of maintenance contracts for purchased equipment and replacement of worn-out equipment.
She said, “If we are to make monumental strides in our duty to provide adequate services for the masses of the community, we must be the first to provide a critical analysis of the status quo. We should shy away from hiding behind the sound of our achievements and speak openly about the areas where we require improvement and development for the benefit of our primary stakeholders, which are the citizens of the province and country.”
In delivering their message of support, Khayalethu Cebani Accounts and Business Development Manager from Old Mutual, said that when he heard about these centres, he visited two centres in Kimberley and observed that there is a gap that the private sector at these centres can fill.
“This is a fact-finding quest for us, we are here to collect data that will be presented to the Board. Hopefully, this will yield positive results”, he said.
Felix Mokwena, Head of Enterprise from MTN, said “we approached the Northern Cape Office of the Premier to discuss key fundamental areas where they would like to see progress. We made resources and expertise available to co-create”.
Other activities included a panel discussion on radio. The last two days were utilised by going through presentations from provinces and other participants.
There are five Thusong service centres in the Northern Cape Province, two in Kimberley and three are located across the province.
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