A new initiative to give citizens more say in improving the delivery of services like water and electricity was relaunched in this week.
A new initiative to give citizens more say in improving the delivery of services like water and electricity was relaunched in this week.
The joint initiative between Rhodes University and Makana Municipality, called MobiSAM, allows people to report service delivery problems directly using their phones or computers.
All you need is access to the internet. The MobiSAM system is an easy and accessible option seeking to investigate how mobile phone technology can be used to improve citizen participation in local government.
The project has been driven by Associate Professor in the Rhodes Computer Science Department, Hannah Thinyane. “We all know there are problems with things like water in Grahamstown,” Thinyane said. “MobiSAM gives us the ability to help solve these problems by reporting them quickly and easily.”
Rhodes Vice-Chancellor Saleem Badat said he is excited about the opportunity to work with the municipality on service delivery matters. “We are happy that one of our academic staff members is coming up with a practical solution to the challenges that the iRhini/Grahamstown community is facing such as water challenges,” said Badat. “We hope that this initiative will go a long way to improve communications between various stakeholders in iRhini/Grahamstown.”
Municipal Spokesperson Mncedisi Boma is also enthusiastic about getting MobiSAM off the ground. “This is a very good initiative that will create an interactive system between Makana Municipality and the community,” he said. “It will be easier for residents to report their problems directly and get instant help from us which is something that never happened before.”
Boma said the municipality will use trained community development workers to assist people with registering on their mobile phones. Those who are able to register on their own are also encouraged to do so. The technology allows residents to report service issues to the municipality and receive responses via SMS or email.
The project also explores other avenues in improving citizen/government dialogue.
“The MobiSAM platform provides mechanisms to support some levels of dialogue, but sometimes you need more space than just a response to a question or an SMS,” Thinyane said. “The project therefore includes working with media houses such as Grocott's Mail and providing training on how to monitor service delivery at local government level.”
MobiSAM also facilitates important data collection with outages being tracked as a by-product of reports that are made. “This can be used for two important tasks by different groups of people. “Makana can use it to help them with planning activities such as budgets for future work and citizens can use the information to support evidence-based engagement with the municipality,” she explained.
If you have access to the internet on your phone or computer then you can use MobiSAM. To register, open your internet browser and go to www.mobisam.net. Once you have registered you are able to participate and talk to your municipality. For further information and queries, visit www.facebook.com/mobisam.net, mobisam.net or email info@mobisam.net.
