Facing tight budgets and skilled staffing challenges, local government will increasingly use AI to make do with less, make more informed decisions, and improve services to their communities. Weskus Distrik’s MM David Joubert outlines three benefits of municipalities embracing AI sooner rather than later.
David Joubert insists that is not nice-to-have but is increasingly a ‘have-to-have’ for local government. Weskus Distrik has taken solid steps towards smart city enablement, and is a leader in many respects.
Three benefits of AI in local government.
1. Timely community engagement.
AI will enable the community to get quicker answers to their questions about services, make service requests, share ways to improve services, and give feedback on the municipality’s performance.
Apart from the community’s needs, in an environment where municipalities will compete with each for investment, potential investors will find it easier and quicker to find the information needed to aid their decision-making. Key information can range from the corporate values of the municipality, history of governance and service delivery, the track record of key players such as the Municipal Mayor, Executive Mayor and Chief Financial Officer, unemployment statistics and so much more.
Having this data at their fingertips already gives an investor clues about the mindset of a municipality.
2. Improved Productivity.
Using cloud applications to accelerate processes is already used by many municipalities but when enhanced with AI, speed is not only improved but importantly the capacity to process large sets of data can deliver insights to improve productivity and with this, service delivery.
For example, analysing video footage of water pipes can take hours but real-time data from the footage will indicate within minutes whether a pipe burst is imminent. Another less obvious application is to target communications through appropriate digital channels into areas of the community showing slow or non-payment of utility bills.
3. Proactive decision-making and long-term planning.
The aim is always to make more efficient and strategic use of ratepayers’ funds.
Increasingly, municipalities will rely on understanding community trends to forecast service demand, upgrade urban planning and development, community safety and law enforcement, energy management, and so much more.
Within the municipality itself, Internet of Things linked to AI systems can monitor energy consumption in a public building and pinpoint over-usage while also predicting future usage.
“Weskus Distrik is embracing what AI has to offer. The applications are extensive, and ours is a journey of discovery and improvement as we continuously seek ways to improve for the benefit of the communities and stakeholders that we serve”.
David Joubert
Municipal Manager
Weskus Distrik Municipality
