E-government in need of a serious boost

There is no denying the fact that the use of ICT has improved the lives of Mauritians and Mauritian enterprises. ICT has also been used in the governance of the country. The contribution of ICT to the GDP of Mauritius grew from 4.7% in 2002 to 6.4% in 2012 (http://ncb.intnet.mu), a delta of 1.7% in ten years. The ICT sector grew despite the slowdown in the global economic climate.

The island is now faced with a new opportunity to achieve an increased contribution of ICT to the GDP. In the ICT arena, the last decade focused on fostering further efficiency in the automation process of enterprises. Internal systems opened up to partners and customers giving birth to systems such as e-government, e-banking and e-ways of living life and running businesses. While there has been an increased adoption of ICT in the private sector in Mauritius, other sectors have still not fully explored the potential of automation. Plugged with this potential is the advent of mobile technologies, social media and big data.

It would be not classified as a far-fetched idea if, for a second, one would think of receiving an SMS from the public hospital where the person has a medical review. It would still not be in realism if one automatically received a loan offer from a bank after browsing an online site dealing with housing property. Extending this line of thought, how about enterprises being able to outsource their ICT infrastructure and management leaving it to experts to do what they do best. Now, this will also allow SMEs to leverage such infrastructure and benefit from the value-add of ICT, allowing even very small enterprises to rely on best practices.

In developed economies, some operators are adopting a differentiation strategy based on innovation for ensuring survival and growth. This is a well explored strategy in Mauritius and ICT is a definite tool that enables innovation. However, it is important to note that ICT itself and ICT personnel are both being externalized from the enterprise landscape, settling down at data centres. The basic objective is conversion of CAPEX to OPEX and driving competitiveness. As a matter of fact, at the current cost of bandwidth, the adoption of Cloud Computing will remain rhetoric. Communication cost in the local market is well beyond reach to enable most enterprises fully leverage the benefit of ICT.

The e-government project of Mauritius has stagnated and is in need of a serious boost. However, basic e-government infrastructures covering e-Health and e-Education at the minimum will create the basic blocks for further progress. Another requisite for boosting the e-government project is the consolidation of the Central Population Database and opening access to both public and private sector companies.

Government holds value-added information which can greatly help the private sector become more efficient. Both the Central Population database and the digital map of Mauritius have extensive potential for exploitation by public and private businesses.

The above projects will accentuate the pressure on the Government Online Centre which needs further computing resources to host software applications respecting global standards of ICT service delivery. These projects will also increase acquisition of ICT equipment, making it critical to devise means and ways of managing ICT waste. There should therefore be ample policies and technical measures to ensure that ICT waste is properly disposed of.

The local software industry exports its products and services to various developing and developed economies. Africa, our next door neighbour, has a high demand for ICT solutions which can be developed by local ICT operators. Today, these operators have a weak channel for taking their solutions offshore towards the African continent. Government-supported measures and government led initiatives/roadshows will open up the channel for local ICT operators to explore the African market.