Abstract
M.A. (Public Management and Governance)
Municipalities are at the forefront of grassroots service delivery, and therefore have to be responsive to the needs of the public, which implies responding to requests and queries in a timely manner. Without an effective ICT system in place, it is extremely difficult for officials to respond to every citizen who has a query, comment or suggestion. Conducting day-to-day operations on this level will be facilitated by the use of ICT systems and tools. This study therefore aims to provide a conceptual framework gained from the relevant literature in an effort to explain the issues, concerns, challenges and solutions on introducing e-government as an alternative service delivery initiative to create smart cities. The study contextualises the use of e-government in the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, thereby aiming to make this key South African metropolitan municipality a ‘smart city’ with better service delivery.
The researcher utilised a mixed-method study that has its origin in the qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The research is qualitative (exploratory) and quantitative (descriptive) serving the purpose of providing exploration and description of concepts and the intended impact that was highlighted in the study. The primary objective of research is to ascertain knowledge. There are two related purposes of research, namely, to explore and discuss in order to be predictive and to accomplish the outcomes of the research questions that were formulated. This research utilised the case study approach and selected the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality (hereafter referred to as City of Johannesburg) as it is a case study.
The study utilised both primary and secondary sources of information. The primary data was collected through interviews and questionnaire survey. The secondary information was collected by means of a careful literature review. A triangulation of data was considered to analyse the information obtained through primary and secondary sources, thus leading to un-obtrusive information for the study. Triangulation was also utilised to strengthen validity and reliability in the research process. Through triangulation the qualitative and quantitative data was collected to corroborate findings...