E-government project failure in Africa: Lessons for reducing risk

E-government project implementation in Africa is commonly associated with low levels of success. This review aimed at drawing lessons for successful E-government project implementation in Africa by analysing one of the successfully implemented E-government projects in South Africa namely the South African Revenue Services (SARS) e-filing program. The findings reported in the paper are mainly based analysis of secondary sources of information relating to the service and direct observation. The review showed that some of the critical factors that can help ensure e-government project success include project support and commitment from top management, having in place a project implementation team with clear deliverables, reliable technical infrastructure, ensuring that users views and situation are taken into consideration in project implementation and having  strong project and monitoring system in place. The findings of this study have wide managerial implications for the success of E-government projects particularly in the African context and these have been highlighted in the paper.   Key words: E-government, Africa, project success, e-tax.