Technological Penetration in Local Government: The Use of Technology to make government and service delivery accessible to poorer communities. A case study on City Power

Abstract

This study investigates the use of technology in service delivery as a method to ensure poorer communities have access to public services. The focus of this investigation is City Power SOC, the City of Johannesburg’s power distribution utility, which provides power to more than 350 000 households and businesses in Johannesburg metropolitan city, Gauteng, South Africa. The power utility has a digital query system to assist customers in the event of an unplanned power outage or other power supply queries. The hypothesis of this report is that public services in South Africa are digitized and have significant technological penetration, this has depoliticized and professionalized service delivery. But, technology has politicised service delivery by perpetuating inequality between richer and poorer areas as poorer areas do not have access to such technology. A Qualitative research was undertaken with dependence on sources from City Power’s annual reports, academic journals, media reports and conference papers. Due to limitations, this study could not find a link between the impact technology created in worsening inequality between the richer and poorer areas, due to the limited data from City Power. While, this study inadvertently shows that there is significant technological penetration in South Africa, especially Johannesburg, but residents are not aware of e-government services such as the measures provided by City Power.