1 January 2000
Issued by: Department of Provincial and Local Government
Twelve hours after the transition to the New Year, we can report that South Africa has passed the first hurdle in the Y2K rollover successfully as expected.
We are very satisfied with how things have gone. No Y2K-related problems have been reported in the past 12 hours.
All major mission critical systems such as transport, communications, electricity, water, health services and emergency services are reported to be operating normally.
We have only received a few reports of disruption of some of these services - such as electricity - but those were because of weather conditions.
We are pleased that the other countries of SADC, Africa and the rest of the world so fare have experienced a smooth transition. We wish to acknowledge and thank the many people around the country - from the emergency services; from the public sector and the private sector; and in particular from the National Y2K Disaster Management Centre, the National Year 2000 Decision Support Centre and the security services - who have given generously of their time and their services to ensure that we would not experience the potentially harmful effects of the Millennium Bug. We would like to express our appreciation to all of you and your colleagues in the media who have supported this campaign for Year 2000 preparations over the past few months, and who over this holiday period have made sure that the public would be kept informed of any Y2K related developments.
We would like to thank the general public for heeding the government's call not to panic and for the way they have conducted themselves. If demonstrates that our Y2K communications campaign was both necessary and effective.
Our nation has demonstrated once again its capacity to rise to challenges by joining hands in a partnership of government, civil society and the private sector.
We will keep our systems in place as the nation goes back to work and in the coming weeks, to continue monitoring the situation.
Contact:
Fred Barron, Dept of Provincial and Local Government, Pretoria
Phone: (012) 334-0630 or 082 456 7545
Fax: (012) 334-0813
Email: y2kcom@iafrica.com