Currently ranked first in the world by the United Nations for the advancements made in their e-government implementation, South Korea possesses a lot of information and experience on e-government services which it could share with Brunei, Dr Sung Gul Hong told reporters yesterday on the sidelines of an international e-Government forum.
As a Professor of Public Administration and Director of Kookmin Institute for Strategic Governance, Dr Sung suggested Brunei study South Korea's journey towards e-government, looking at both the success stories as well as the failures.
"We have experienced most of the possible ways of establishing e-government services. So I think if Brunei would like to develop e-government services, then you have to study about what South Korea did and what were the outcomes of those policy efforts," he said.
"Not just the success stories but the stories behind it - that is the trials and errors," he added.
Dr Sung remarked that Korea had faced many failed cases as one of the pioneer countries to take on the transition towards e-governance.
"We spent unnecessary money and in some cases, we have established new systems (which) are not used for three or more years. Maybe (the system) is used just one time and that's it, and then we have to have a new system," he said. "So it costs a lot, but nothing is really created. There are many of that kind of stories," he added.
Dr Sung cited one incident which occurred about a decade ago, when the South Korean government attempted to upgrade its "citizen registration card" from paper documents to the "smart card".
However, civil groups voiced their opposition to the move, arguing the potential dangers of privacy leakages.
At the time, civil groups were very active in promoting their own agenda and therefore, the policy of adopting the smart card was abandoned, despite a lot of money spent," he said.
It was from such experiences that Brunei could learn from and avoid repeating the mistakes made, the professor said.
As a follower, you (Brunei) can reduce a lot of costs. We (Korea) as a first-runner, we spent a lot of money on trials and errors, but you don't have to do that," he said. "By doing it that way, you can be successful in a shorter period of time."
The South Korean also expressed his view that political leadership played the most crucial role in a country's transition towards e-government.
"If you ask me to pick just one; the decisive factor in achieving e-government as well as national implementation in such a short period of time in Korea, I would like to say it is the political leadership," he said.
"Having e-government, as I always emphasise, is a political issue, not a mechanical nor an economic issue. The strong willingness of the political leadership to adapt e-government services and provide e-government services to the public is the most important aspect"
Dr Sung was one of the speakers at the three-day International Conference on e-Government and Administrative Simplification, co-organised by OECD Korea Policy Centre and the Prime Minister's Office (Brunei) at Radisson Hotel.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ubaidillah Masli
Quelle/Source: Bru Direct, 13.05.2010
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