Mobile government for improved public service provision in South Africa

The use of ICT as a communication channel and a platform for effective public service provision has been established as an internationally agreed fact. With the help of ICT tools citizens can be provided with a wide selection of business, public and government services. With the challenges facing most developing countries in effectively and inclusively implementing electronic government, a number of mobile government research initiatives have been proposed to complement electronic government for enhanced public service delivery. Mobile government promises to provide a fair and convenient platform which allows all citizens, even in remote areas of developing countries, to better access public services. With a careful implementation of mobile government, service provision between customers, businesses and government will become independent of time and space separating them. This paper will deal with a model for the development of secure and locally relevant mobile government services. Sustainability factors such as service usability and mobile local content development can also be addressed by the developed framework.