City Hall Information and Communications Technology Department director Mohammad Em-bong said the local authority would keep on introducing the latest digital services to benefit the public.
“E-governance is a big word and people expect a more convenient way of doing things via the Internet and other online processes,” he said in Shanghai, China, on March 29.
“We launched the e-submission system in January and contractors and developers can now submit applications using CDs containing information on building plans and keep track of the progress of their applications through the Internet.”
Mohammad and another colleague represented City Hall at a workshop on e-Governance: Di-gital Local Agenda Awareness Raising organised by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (Unitar) from March 28 to 30, in collaboration with the Regional Network of Local Au-thorities for Management of Hu-man Settlements (CITYNET).
It was hosted by CIFAL Shanghai, one of the 12 international training centres for local authorities under Unitar. City Hall has another centre at the Kuala Lum-pur Regional Training Centre.
Mohammad said many digital services were already available via City Hall’s website – www. dbkl.gov.my – such as e-perumahan which allowed qualified citizens to apply for public housing schemes, e-cukai pintu for the public to pay their assessment and e-summons for payment of summonses online.
However, he said more needed to be done to encourage the public to fully utilise the e-summons feature.
“There have been a lot of hits and enquiries but when it comes to payment, people prefer going to the counter to see the compound officer and ask for discounts,” he said.
He added that perhaps it was necessary for City Hall to review its policy to offer discounts as well as to encourage online payments.
To a question on whether City Hall would give the public the opportunity to highlight their opinions and interact with department heads through online chat sessions like what the Singaporean and Shanghai governments are doing, he said the local authority used to have an online forum but it was abused.
“We have that option in our website and we can easily use it again,” he said, adding that City Hall would continue to upgrade and add new features.
At the workshop, City Hall presented a case study on its Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) application on enforcement for advertisement billboards while other countries’ local authorities shared their experiences on e-procurement and digital management of health records.
Unitar programme officer Akiko Miyahara said the workshop was for participants to share their experiences of using IT to make their governments more transparent, efficient and effective.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Chow How Ban
Quelle/Source: The Malaysia Star, 04.04.2007
