Briefing the Central District Council full council meeting recently, Ms Omphitlhetse said government had since embarked on a progressive e-government programme as a way of accelerating the delivery of the national information communication technology policy known as Maitlamo.
She said the programme was aimed at simplifying the way citizens and businesses interact with government transforming the quality and streamlining the internal operations of the public service.
Ms Omphitlhetse further told the meeting that government had created a web-portal centred on the needs of citizens, business, government employees and tourists.
She said the portal was to be kept alive with the current and updated content by individual ministries and government agencies who were expected to author, approve and publish content on a regular basis.
Ms Omphitlhetse said the e-government portal was expected to be launched before the end of March 2010.
The meeting also heard that e-government had a lot of benefits that included efficiency whereby service delivery would be faster than before. Also, she said e-government was transparent, cost effective and would assist in the consistency of service delivery.
She however, warned that there were risks associated with e-government even though they were outweighed by the benefits.
Ms Omphitlhetse cited one of the disadvantages of e-government as vulnerability to cyber attacks and inaccessibility because of digital divide.
This, she said would affect remote areas dwellers and those who had low literacy levels as well as those that existed on poverty line incomes more.
Ms Omphitlhetse said the ministry of local government was a unique, intricate and massive ministry with a critical mandate.
It oversees 16 semi-autonomous local authorities divided into town, city and district councils as well as district and tribal administration.
She said the major challenge for the e-government programme within local authorities was failure to publish content.
For their part, councillors expressed happiness to the initiative, saying they were anxiously waiting for its implementation as it would make their work easier.
In addition, they said e-government would also expose tax evaders and it would keep them abreast with what was happening in the country and the global village.
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Quelle/Source: Botswana Press Agency, 19.03.2010
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