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Launching of the Eastern Cape Website
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Speeches and Media Releases
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SPEECH MADE BY Y. ABBA OMAR
ON THE LAUNCH OF THE EASTRN CAPE GOVERNMENT WEBSITE
 3 SEPTEMBER 1999



If the Twentieth Century is to be the African Century and if Information/Communication Technologies is to be the driving force of the 
coming century, then this little step we bear witness to today surely has the potential of becoming a flagship of the African Renaissance.

GCIS came into being after the investigation into government communications by Comtask. The Comtask Report pointed out that government 
communications should be based on the principle of a dialogue between the public and government.

In a recent survey into the information needs of the South African population, our researchers reached an important conclusion which 
emphasised how palpable this notion of dialogue is. "Out of the more than 500 people who formed part of the focus groups, hardly anyone 
said that communication from government was not important or was not needed. Most groups were totally unanimous about this, although this 
must be modified by the fact that for many it was their own communication to government which was more important than communication to them 
from government."

This desire by the public to have their views heard is not lost on government. In fact, President Mbeki speaking at the official launch of 
Government Online earlier this year pointed out:" We believe that it is indeed the responsibility of the government to communicate to the 
South African population. It is important that the people should know what the Government is doing&#133;.So that the people themselves can 
make an impact on those processes in Government. The launching of this Website is very much part of that process of ensuring the 
accessibility of government to the people."

This is why the Internet becomes such an important tool for democracy  by its very nature it is ideal for contributing to democracy.

We hope that Government Online makes a key contribution to the information revolution unfolding in this part of the continent. Government 
information is increasingly being made on the Internet. Government structures are in the process of creating their own home pages. 
Government Online links to the websites of 29 such bodies. Government Online, without an aggressive marketing campaign, has about 5 000 
hits per day and 400 user sessions per day.

Further developments we envisages include:

* Additional information on government projects, services and forms:
* Discussion forums on policy and other issues;
* Legislation dating back to 1994. Some of you may be aware this is an area we hope to improve with the parliament Website;
* The Tender Bulletin is already published weekly-we hope to include the Government Gazette soon.

To date there has been a bewildering range of initiatives to set up Multi Purpose Community Centers. There has been the Universal Service 
Agency and its roll out of telecentres, the Post Office with its plans to set up citizen post offices, the Departments of Trade and 
Industry; Arts, Culture, Sports and Technology; the CSIR; and the Youth Commission are at different stages in the establishment of these 
centers. GCIS has taken the initiative to coordinate all these efforts. We hope this will yield a more rational allocation of scarce 
government and external funding. We hope these will become building blocks in our vision of one-stop government information centers.

These coupled with developments such as that of the Public Information Terminal and the launch of the Eastern Cape Government Web site can 
only lead to the information revolution becoming a truly peoples revolution. A project which we hope to launch soon (you quickly learn in 
government not to give specific deadlines) is a FAQ initiative aimed at identifying the main information gaps in the South African public. 
The idea is to have all government departments logging the key questions people ask of them. This is all ready being done at GCIS. The 
answer will then be solicited from source and made available through Government Online, through the MPCCs and funds allowing even through 
Post Offices in hard copy. We believe that an intensive campaign lasting a couple of years aimed at meeting the basic information needs of 
the South African population will result in an information platform being created.

What has all this got to do with the African Renaissance? To avoid the accusation of the African Renaissance being some quixotic notion, 
government has tended to describe the notion as aimed at building an Africa in which the conditions of life of the people are constantly 
and rapidly improving with the aims of attaining standards that broadly accord with the best in the world. This means that the mission of 
the African Renaissance should be to mobilise Africans in this endeavour, such that their efforts bring visible improvements to their 
conditions.

People centred development is identified as a centripetal force across race, religion, gender and class. The required industrialization and 
economic development requires the strengthening of the productive forces-in particular Africas human resources and information technology. 
Education and training which can be facilitated through the Website can harness Africas arts and culture, its intellectual discourse and 
its spiritual sustenance.

The South African government is encouraging the continent to avoid all that it does right being painted with the African Renaissance brush. 
Instead the idea is that key flagship projects are identified. With the potential the Website has to link up with various parts of Africa 
this could easily become one such project. Such a project could encapsulate two of the key themes identified by government viz. "Africas 
brain and brawn for the Renaissance" and " African life matters."

The day when projects like this Website help Africans reach out beyond their boundaries in a common effort to revive Africa can we say that 
the Africa Renaissance has truly taken root.



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