Bridge the Gap
Ekurhuleni has been at the forefront of developments around implementation of the Digital City. The Digital City concept is centered on taking government and specifically local government into the digital age.
ALBERTON – The Digital City – Ekurhuleni
Ekurhuleni wants to create a smart community that can tap into the information resources of the City, thus making Ekurhuleni an e-city. The way we think about services are about to change exponentially. Ekurhuleni is fast becoming a connected community that uses the broadband communications infrastructure of the City to establish new and innovative services to meet the needs of all stakeholders, including ratepayers, business, local government, and all citizens of Ekurhuleni.
As a Digital City Ekurhuleni will provide Internet-based government services that can connect and transform certain key government processes, both internally across the service departments and externally to residents and businesses. Today every one has a mobile device, and the Digital City services will be accessible wirelessly through any mobile device. In pursuance of the Digital City initiative, Ekurhuleni has launched the first basket of e-government services through the e-Siyakhokha programme.
The Ekurhuleni Finance Department is breaking new ground in paying municipal rates and taxes and services on the e-government platform. The e-Siyakhokha project was developed to ensure a seamless, quick and easy method of paying your municipal account. Debt collection and Credit control is two of our major challenges in Ekurhuleni, and the name Siyakhokha can be loosely translated as “We pay”, creating a new culture of payment for services electronically.
Through e-Siyakhokha this culture can now join the digital age. Many of our current problems with delivery of municipal bills and the large number of people still complaining about not receiving statements will be a thing of the past with e-government. The e-Siyakhokha Services website is accessible 24 hours a day, and is a safe and secure platform to pay for municipal services from the comfort of your home. Let’s bridge the gap and go digital. Follow me on Twitter for more information and regular municipal updates @neildiamond7
e-Siyakhokha is the dumbest name you could choose. Why couldn’t you just choose something like bills.Ekurhuleni.com so that you can actually find it on Google. And it is not seamless, it is a mission to actually pay for anything on there. I have tried many times, and all I do is waste my time and have to pay via my bank anyway.
The only useful thing the site does is provide access to your statements, and even then it would more useful if it sent you the actual statement and not an email saying that the statement is available.
Go back and rethink the site. This is not a digital age site, it is a 1990’s website.
Eish! what an unfortunate remark. e-Siyakhoka is explained so nicely by the honourable Councillor cde Diamond. In our language it is standing for “we pay”. Why if this uMlungu is so clever on names, why did she not participate in the process and propose the name bills.Ekurhuleni.com. It is so easy to criticise your leaders when they do good. Thank you for keeping the community informed cde Diamond.