GIS Letter

Geographic Information System (GIS) News

The mission of the Department of Local Government and Housing, Limpopo is to “To support, strengthen, monitor and ensure sustainable and developmental local authorities and to facilitate and co-ordinate an integrated housing and infrastructure development through sound financial management practices and effective utilization of human resources.”

The Department initiated a project to meet its mission by the implementation of a GIS system.

The Department found that it’s problems with regards to reporting and monitoring of information is reaching critical levels. These problems required an immediate solution to be developed. The efficiency and effectiveness of the Department seemed to be hindered by the following aspects:

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1. Unnecessary duplication of information;
2. Limited access to information
3. Lack of reporting and monitoring capabilities.
4. Non-connectivity between systems
5. Disparate stand-alone databases that do not speak to one another;
6. An inability to comply with government policy on information technology and e business.

The Department feels that within its offices a GIS system will have far-reaching implications for most role-players in this Department. A GIS will benefit the Department by ultimately providing improved access to information, a tool to assist role players in decision-making, improved service delivery, reduction in the required storage space, improved accuracy of the spatial databases, enhanced reporting and monitoring capabilities and a more client-focussed service.

The Department appointed Sedibeng IT with its partner Intergraph S.A. to implement the GIS. Unique to this project is the Skills Development Plan that the Department and Sedibeng is setting in place to transfer skills from Intergraph S.A. to local companies within the Province.

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Two local companies, IT Master and Jesten have been chosen to be part of this project. Not only will the technicians of the said companies receive training but they will form an integrated part of this project. Where possible, they will be assigned tasks to perform under the Project Management of both Intergraph and SITA, thus contributing their skills to the project as well.

The duration of this project is nine (9) months ending the end of December 2004.

Regular updates will be posted to the Newsletter of the Department concerning progress made with the project.