The South African government spent 14% of its total ICT budget on health and education at a national and provincial level combined in the 2014/15 financial year, according to a report by BMI TechKnowledge.

Overall, government’s ICT expenditure for the previous financial year stood at R13.6 billion, R1.8 billion of which went to projects within the health and education departments.

BMI TechKnowledge in its 2015 ICT in Government report estimates that expenditure will grow to R15 billion in the 2017/18 financial year.

The report also reveals that 79% of ICT for health and education budget was spent at a provincial level and estimates that it will grow to 87% in the 2017/18 financial year.

In June, the Gauteng provincial government announced it had budgeted R800 million to implement its elearning initiatives in the current financial year.

The chart below shows that health received the bigger chunk (two thirds) of the allocated amount between the two departments and that whereas national and provincial education has seen a slight increase since the 2014/15 financial year, national and provincial health has remained more or less the same.

“R240 million has been allocated for this financial year, but it is unclear how this money will translate into actual ICT spend to connect schools and health clinics, as the budgets for provincial health and education do not seem to reflect much of an increase in ICT spend,” the report states. “It could however go through either the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, SITA, the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa (USAASA), the Universal Service and Access Fund (USAF), or even a specifically-created broadband fund.”

“Presently some of the provincial broadband programmes, related to health and education, do not necessary go through the provincial Health and Education votes, but fall under provincial economic development departments, the Office of the Premier or even the finance departments. Individual schools and clinics also sometimes contract directly with ICT service providers,” the report concludes.

BMI-TechKnowledge predicts that a lot more will need to be allocated to ICT expenditure if government is to reach the targets set out in the South Africa Connect broadband policy which include having all schools and health facilities in the country having internet connectivity set at speeds of 1GB per second.

[Image – CC 2.0 by Government ZA]