The Information Technology (IT) Section provides a support function to all the other departments in order to help the Municipality meet its strategic objectives. No organisation can effectively execute its functionalities without the proper installation and support of a properly structured information management system.
The Municipality has a Computer Advisory Committee (CAC) to ensure that systems are developed from a corporate perspective and that the same standards apply to the Municipality as a whole.
All the departments are represented on the CAC. The budget provisions, as well as procurement of all computer hardware and software are coordinated through the CAC as a support function for the management team. Limited funds are available for upgrading and extension of the computer network. The computer budget all departments within the municipality) is approximately R600 000 per year.
Support Services
The IT Section is structured/organised in three sub-sections, namely operations, technical/support and database support.
Operations Section:
The routine responsibilities are:
- Monthly rates and penalties for late payment of water, electricity and rates;
- Updates of daily payments through ACB, Easy Pay, banks and cashier points;
- Calendar general ledger month end (last day of the current month);
- General ledger month-end (5th working day of the new month);
- Debit raising for the Paarl area and payment downloads from ABSA, Easy Pay, etc;
- Daily backups of the databases and systems are done;
- Distribution of printer consumables;
- Daily and monthly processing of jobs;
- Capturing of data; and
- Backups of financial systems.
- Technical and Support Section:
This sub-section deals with the day-to-day technical and user support of all the networks and desktops in the Municipality. During the year the following new projects were worked on:
- A centralised support desk now handles all support calls. Calls are logged and tracked on a call logging system.
- WAN infrastructure is being upgraded to accommodate increased network traffic, as well
as the new IP telephone system.
Database Support:
This section’s objective is to maintain current databases and to supply reliable information, as well as application programs to the end-users.
Special Written Programmes
The Housing Department has requested an application program, which they could use to update the Municipal Housing Waiting list. The program has been implemented at the beginning of
October 2006 and employees of the Housing Section are currently updating the records.
Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
The layers on the GIS are updated on a regular basis and a newer set of aerial photography will be implemented in the near future.