Page 34 - Service Delivery Review

Integrated Service Delivery: Maponya Mall Urban Thusong Service Centre

Customer traffic

Watching the hive of activity from the office high up, Ndzula’s description of the MTSC at work as “the City” is apt.
According to the centre manager, as many as 100 people are on duty at a given time. They range from security
officials at the entrance to those processing transactions on behalf of the tenant departments and agencies. He
estimates the monthly customer traffic to the MTSC at about 25 000 people, roughly four times the annual fan
capacity of the nearby Orlando Stadium.

Integrated Service Delivery Programme – the Big Picture

The Maponya Thusong Service Centre has existed since 2011 and is part of a network of 187 similar centres
countrywide under the Thusong Services Centre Programme, launched in 1999. These centres were previously
known as Multi-Purpose Community Centres (MPCCs). They formed part of the government’s efforts at bringing
services nearer to where citizens reside and in an integrated fashion.

It has been more than ten years since the Urban Mall Thusong Service Centre integrated service delivery model
was piloted. However, a typical day at the Maponya Thusong Service Centre shows none of the rustiness of being
a pioneer and an early adopter.

The Maponya Thusong Service Center has had to reinvent itself to keep up with the times, just like its counterparts
everywhere in the nation. Under the direction of the National Inter-Sectoral Steering Committee (NISSC), the
Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) has been leading conversations to reimagine new
operating models for TSCs.

GCIS Deputy Director-General responsible for the programme, Michael Currin, has chaired a series of strategic
sessions aimed at the following:
• Benchmarking and sharing good practices with delegates from all nine provinces, focusing on two
models/typologies of Thusong Service Centres in eThekwini Local Municipality.
• Sharing a status report on the progress made thus far by the Thusong Service Centre programme and
implementation of the Thusong Service Centre communication strategy.
• Sharing draft resolutions on the improvement plan of the programme in terms of functionality.

During these sessions, the State Information Technology Agency and the Department of Communications and
Digital Technologies continue to provide insights into how the digitisation of all Thusong Service Centres could
align with the Fourth Industrial Revolution requirement.

34 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 15 • No. 2 of 2022/2023