Tired of that pothole in your road? New service delivery app for JHB and CT can help

(Published in Property24)

My Smart City, recently launched in Cape Town and Johannesburg, is a new app that lets users report service delivery issues.

The unfortunate reality is that not many of South Africa 105 largest local municipalities or its key 8 metros are well run, financially fit or providing quality services to its residents. This is according to the latest Ratings Afrika annual Municipal Financial Sustainability Index (MFSI™) whose analyses is based on the financial results for the fiscal year ending in June 2020.

So could this "citizen’s platform that connects you to the service providers in your city", help cut through the noise and red tape?

According to the app developed by Acumen Software, it means "no more frustratingly long phone calls with customer service agents".

"Whether you are logging issues that need attention or simply want to gain access to resources and information, My Smart City is where you can log issues and faults such as potholes, burst water pipes, street and traffic lights that are out, vandalism and more - or simply find information and resources such as schedules, contact details, locations, news and more," says Joao Zoio, CEO of Acumen Software.

But like all good citizen platforms it needs scale and community involvement to work effectively - even though it is integrated into the City of Cape Town's call management system for example. The intention is for the app to connect to all municipalities across SA.

Features on the app don't only include municipal services - it also includes emergency services and private service providers allowing citizens to:

• Find and communicate with service providers in your city

• Log issues/faults for these service providers, allowing the service provider to address it

• Track the progress of the resolution of the issues/faults

• Gain information from service providers, whether related to an issue/fault or otherwise

• View the issues/faults that have been raised by other citizens

• Upvote issues/faults, indicating to service providers the urgency and number of individuals that are affected by the issue

• Provide detailed descriptions, photographs and GPS coordinates to the issues to assist service providers with the resolution of the issues

• Create petitions for the resolution of issues/faults by service providers

"Designed by-citizens-for-citizens, My Smart City is not affiliated with the service providers that the citizen engages with on the platform. As such, the primary purpose of the My Smart City is to improve the citizens’ interaction with service providers in their city using technology while providing trackability," says Zoio.

“The launch of the My Smart City platform is the result of 3 years of hard work and overcoming of many challenges. We are very proud of what we have created and we believe that it will change the way in which citizens engage service providers in their city. Furthermore, My Smart City will create over 50,000 much needed, disruptive jobs in the next 5 years in South Africa alone.”

My Smart City is available to use on mobile devices and web browsers via the My Smart City website.