Examining the adoption and usage of an e-government system in rural South Africa: Examining e-government system adoption

In this paper, we present an exploratory case study delineated as an analysis for the adoption and usage of a software solution designed to manage water and sanitation fault complaints reported from seven communities of two rural municipalities in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The software system dubbed Citizen Complaints Management System (CCMS) stores fault complaints reported by the public was coupled with a toll-free telephone number to increase opportunities for citizens to report faults. Findings from qualitative interviews on CCMS useis are analysed using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) constructs i.e. Perceived usefulness (PU) and Perceived ease of use (PEOU) with External variables. Findings show that external variables like design methods, system cost, novelty, technical costs, system availability and lower financial costs of the system had an impact on PU and PEOU; and hence adoption and use of CCMS.