South African Social Development Department: Selects OPENTEXT Solution to Digitize Social Assistance Appeals Process to Boost Service Delivery

By Richard Adorsu-

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Accra, Ghana- OpenText has announced the Department of Social Development of South Africa has deployed OpenText Documentum xCP, a case management framework to digitize its social assistance appeals process.

The solution enables the department to provide a more effective, efficient, and accessible social assistance appeals service for its citizens and reduce legal expenditures.

“Implementing OpenText Documentum xCP shifted the department’s operations into the 21st century. We have successfully transformed from a paper-based processing system to a fully digital system that has improved our efficiency and productivity,” said John Mokoele, Director, Pre-Adjudications and Operations in the Chief Directorate: Social Assistance Appeals for the Department of Social Development. “With this transformation, we have gone from adjudicating less than 50 percent of appeals within the required 90-day period, to consistently meeting our 100 percent target.”

OpenText™ Documentum™ xCP helps ensure compliance and enables department staff to promptly inform stakeholders of required action, escalate long-running appeals and generate audit reports for reference.

“Citizens today are well-informed, tech-savvy and have high expectations, which public sector organizations are constantly challenged to meet,” said OpenText Chief Product Officer, Muhi Majzoub. “OpenText Documentum xCP allows for more insight, responsiveness and flexibility around the appeals process, meaning the Department of Social Development can be confident in the speed and quality of its appeals decisions, delivering enhanced value to its citizens and achieving significant cost savings.”

The department worked with local OpenText partner Faranani DocTec to implement the solution. The cost savings achieved by using OpenText™ Documentum™ xCP have been reallocated for

the improvement of the Department of Social Development’s business services, including administration of appeals. These bottom-line benefits have also been put towards increasing awareness among potential applicants and beneficiaries of social assistance.

OpenText Documentum xCP features a low-code development environment for rapid design and deployment of robust case management solutions, bringing new efficiency and agility to complex information-centric processes, from loan applications to benefit approvals, across a range of industries.

For New Africa Daily News Richard Adorsu Reports,  Africa Correspondent