The Department of Finance of the South African province of Gauteng has allocated ZAR985 million (US$99 million) to realising the region’s aim of becoming a smart and connected.
Gauteng Finance MEC Mandla Nkomfe used the presentation of the budget vote for 2013/2014 to say the funds would be allocated to meeting Gauteng’s ICT targets.
“The bulk of these resources will be appropriated towards realising the GPG’s ICT strategic outcomes, in order to drive ICT transformation initiatives in the province,” he said.
“To this end, our broadband network infrastructure will be implemented in a phased approach, where the Gauteng Online network will receive first priority. This will be followed by connecting government buildings, eServices to other Departments, and the 20 Priority Townships.”
HumanIPO reported earlier this month the City of Joburg Broadband Project is set to go live on July 1, delivering a live network offering services to all connected municipal buildings.
The project, will has been completed over the last three years, will cover all seven regions in the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) municipality.
BWired will operate the project for 12 years, while the network was designed by Ericsson South Africa. All civil work was completed at the end of last month, while fibre installation is currently 90 per cent complete.
Noting that 99.86 per cent uptime availability of the province’s Wide Area Networks (WAN) had been achieved, Nkomfe said other targets included an off-site data centre facility, stabilsing the Local Area Network (LAN) and investing in a security operations centre.
“We currently support 1,538 computer laboratories in Gauteng Public Schools under the Gauteng Online (GoL) Schools Project. However, this flagship project is currently under strategic review to incorporate comprehensive components of e-Education, which were excluded from the original scope,” he said.
