E-Government & Public Service Delivery: Enabling ICT to put “People First” – A Case Study from South Africa

The literature on the effectiveness of e-government in developing countries towards improving public service delivery is littered with failure stories. Notwithstanding, the failures have not stopped most governments in developing countries from increasingly turning to ICT, most notably internet based models, as the preferred channel for citizen-centered service delivery. This paper investigated e-government within the developing country context of South Africa. We used the interpretive paradigm primarily because we wanted to increase our understanding of the phenomenon of e-government for public service delivery within the local South African context. The investigation focused on one of the governments primary service delivery programmes – social grants. The analysis of findings suggest that egovernment in South Africa is not aligned to the service delivery philosophy, Batho Pele, and is hence not effective in delivering on the public service delivery mandate. Batho Pele which literally means “people first” is similar to the UNDP Human Development Indicators for development. The contribution of this research can be extended to both practice and IS theory. The research highlights the need for ICT4D, particularly e-government in developing contexts, to firstly be aligned to the current over-arching government philosophies if they are to have any effective impact on service delivery. The practical contribution of the research is a possible framework that could be used to align e-government in South Africa to the government philosophy of service delivery.