Juba City Council on digital transformation drive

Juba City Council on digital transformation drive

Juba City Council has begun the digitalization of its workflow to make its service delivery more efficient.  

On Friday, some of the council staff members underwent digital training in Juba as part of the transition process.

This comes after the Mayor, Mr. Kalisto Lado, tasked all staff, including cleaners within the municipal body, to be computer literate and know how to press the keyboard – at least.

Speaking during the training, Lado said there is a need to transition from the traditional ways of doing things to embracing modern technologies.

“If it is done in a modern way, we will improve efficiency in our performance. There will be a high level of transparency and accountability in our performance. The financial resources we get from the taxpayers will be known to all organs of the government,”  Kalisto said.

Lado promised that accountability will cascade all the way to the grassroots as he promised that even taxpayers will know how their money is being utilized.

“For us to deliver services, we must have money and for us to have money we must actually levy taxes, and for us to levy taxes we must have a good tax system. Therefore, whatever we get should get into the government’s purpose and in return to deliver effective services.”

Fostering transparency

He said the aim of transparency was to ensure that whatever money that Juba City Council has is not diverted by the individuals in the Juba City Council.

“The government only collects this money because this is part of the mandate of the people that they have given to the government to collect the taxes on their behalf and deliver services to them,” Kalisto stressed.

The mayor said the Juba City Council was going digital and they are digitalizing everything, including revenue collection and even their engineering way of doing things.

He said one of their duties was to ensure that all the houses being built in Juba meet the international standards of construction.

Mayor said people were just constructing without the approval of the Juba City Council.

“What is happening here [is] someone will not bring his building plan and even will not look for a building permit because he or she has money. The person will just go and get a piece of land and start building,” he said.

He emphasized the need to verify the quality of the building and the specifications required by the city council in any kind of building that should be constructed in the city

“We need to change the shape of Juba just like the shape of all the cities in the whole world,” he said.   

“Our citizens are losers in this matter and as the government, we will be seen like people who don’t protect the rights of our citizens.”

He said the city council has the right to contract companies to supervise the efficiency and that the engineers will go to the sites to inspect the constructions taking place in Juba.

“They need to find out what kind of materials are being used for the constructions, [whether] the work has been approved, or [whether the] building permit [is there] or not. They must be approved for the first step during the setting of the foundation,” Kalisto said.

“Every step should have an approval and checked and once it is checked it should be satisfied and approved from the start,” he added.     

The mayor said the  Juba City Council has embarked on tough reforms by getting away from the traditional way of doing things in a modern system.

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