Minister of Small Business Development Ms Lindiwe Zulu has expressed her well wishes and encouragement to South Africa's largest civic engagement platform GovChat, on being invited by the European Union (EU) Commission Vice-President, H.E. Andrus Ansip and African Union (AU) Commissioner for Infrastructure and  Energy H.E. Amani Abou-Zeid, to join them at the "High-Level Roundtable Discussion on Digital Economy" at the 6th EU-Africa Business Forum on 27 November 2017, in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.

The forum takes place prior to the AU-EU Heads of State and Government Summit which is scheduled for  29th-30th November 2017.

GovChat, as a civic engagement platform in partnership with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) enables Government to send messages to the public at no cost and receive service delivery related messaging in return.

Together with all its partners, GovChat has developed a pilot platform, which enhanced the levels of engagement between citizens and councillors.

Minister Zulu further said; "We congratulate the GovChat team for their tremendous success, which demonstrates the high levels of social entrepreneurship that exist in our country. GovChat is a good example of the potential within our country's technology industry especially amongst our youth. The acknowledgement by multilateral partners has also confirmed the enormous opportunities that exist in the ICT sector.”

We believe in open government partnerships and working with all partners to improve communities and look forward to the launch of the GovChat Android and iOS Apps in the first quarter of 2018.

 

Issued by Ministry of Small Business Development