WATCH: DPSA wants to modernize South Africa

The Department of Public Service and Administration are now taking steps to “modernize” South Africa by using Information Technology.

Ms. Makhasi has only had a few days in office as the Director-General and already she is seen answering crucial questions and discussing methods on how to modernize the South African administrative processes.

“Processes in all departments are highly administrative, highly compliant driven, if you automate something you can get lots of value from it”

“You don’t just automate something that is still having problems, you have to fix your problems before automating it,” said Ms. Makhasi.

Ms. Makhasi smiles as she explains the process taken to apply for the role, Printing a CV, fill in a Z83 and still hand it into the department.

“In this age and era, I don’t think, as South Africa we should not be doing that,” said Ms. Makhasi.

During the interview, it is also mentioned that some parts of South Africa have very little money and traveling to hand in applications can be troublesome. Having the ability to apply online and receive an immediate response is a step forward, saving time and money for the applicants.

“There are a lot of things we can talk about and do, but of course they require resources. So we have to find creative ways to bring in partners and resources. These are ideas on how we can improve the functioning of the state and build capacity.”