A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE UTILISATION OF E-GOVERNMENT BY SELECTED MUNICIPALITIES IN SOUTH AFRICA AND RWANDA: DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL FOR EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT ONLINE SERVICE DELIVERY

Abstract

In today’s information age and knowledge society, many countries in the world, including South Africa and Rwanda, have now adopted the use of new Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially the internet, in their public sector as one of the main delivery channels for public services. Online service delivery is increasingly seen as a means to reduce costs while providing better services to citizens. Local government, being the centre and cornerstone of service delivery and the channel used by government to improve people’s lives, has to be at the forefront of utilising modern ICTs in order to effectively and efficiently address the changing and increasing needs and expectations of citizens. The utilisation of e-government by local spheres of government in developed countries such as France, South Korea and England has played an important role not only in streamlining public administration but also in enhancing the quality of service delivery to citizens. The end results were, amongst others, improved transparency and accountability, less corruption, and less citizens’ dissatisfaction with government services. However, the local spheres of government in both South Africa and Rwanda are still struggling to deliver effective services to citizens. Citizens express their dissatisfaction with service delivery through strikes and community protests as frequently reported in the media. The researcher assumes that if e-government had effectively been used by the district municipalities in particular, it could have assisted the district municipalities in complying with the Batho Pele Principles, and therefore in delivering better services to the citizens. The aim of the study was to determine and compare the level of utilisation of egovernment by the four selected district municipalities both in South Africa and Rwanda. In addition, from the research findings a model for the effective utilisation of e-government by the selected district municipalities was to be developed. The main objective and the nine co-objectives of the study were achieved through the data collected by means of the three main data collection techniques, namely documentary, survey and structured interviews. As two parties (supply side and demand side) must be involved for the utilisation of e-government to be successful, two types of respondents were targeted. The simple random sampling method was used to select 400 respondents who were ordinary citizens living in the areas known as townships, while the judgemental sampling method was used to select 40 interviewees who were officials from district municipalities. The research findings showed that a limited amount of online information and services are provided and the district municipalities are struggling to make progress in moving to the more advanced stages of e-government development, including the provision of more online services, online payment and online participation. In addition, the level of awareness and the level of utilisation of available online services by the citizens were very low. The main constraints were related to lack or low level of education and low level of income. To address the situation, efforts to promote both provision of online services (supply side) and usage of online services (demand side) must go hand- in- hand. Government efforts to develop e-government services need to go closely together with its efforts to increase demand and usage by the citizens.