• MTN Business has announced that it has secured a project from the National Treasury regarding the implementation of smart infrastructure.
• The company will undertake a three-year project across 257 municipalities locally.
• The project will involve digitising municipalities with smart water and electricity systems.

MTN Business has a massive digitisation project it is set to implement as it secured a three-year traversal contract (RT29) with the National Treasury.

The company will specifically be implementing smart water and electricity systems across 257 municipalities in South Africa, with the project set to commence this month.

Here, MTN Business will supply, deliver, install, manage, and maintain end-to-end smart metering solutions across the country.

This is not the first large scale project that the National Treasury has been a part of regarding utilities, as Sigfox SA was recently confirmed as being the network provider for smart water meters across the country.

“We are deeply committed to playing a significant role in providing leading digital solutions for South Africa’s progress. Digital technologies have become fundamental to everyday life, and our ambition is to ensure that these technologies touch the lives of our government, customers, and businesses in various ways. This solution will not only bring value and impact to municipalities but will see our households and businesses reaping the benefits of a modern connected life,” noted Charles Molapisi (pictured above), CEO of MTN SA regarding the project.

He added that locally, MTN Business smart meters offer numerous benefits to various stakeholders within the supply chain, along with enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and security. For municipal customers in particular, he said that they provide better data access for managing electricity usage, which in turn leads to more accurate billing, and therefore improved outage restoration.

This is not the first time that MTN Business and the National Treasury have worked together either, as the pair’s most recent efforts in 2021 enabled the company to digitise government entities and connect thousands of its employees.

“This new partnership will further enable MTN Business to assist municipalities in effectively managing their clients’ electricity and water consumption through smart technology,” it shared in a release with Hypertext.

As we have seen this week thanks to issues at City Power regarding the implementation of load reduction, a smarter infrastructure could certainly assist in terms of service delivery and quality.

“It’s clear that this partnership will bring about significant benefits that will take South Africa one step further towards achieving a technologically advanced and economically developed electricity and water systems that will ensure South Africa’s usages remains sustainable for future generations. This is of utmost importance because while the water crisis may not be as apparent as the energy crisis, it remains a looming risk which we collectively need to address,” concluded Molapisi.