The project, which was launched in February and targeted to be completed at the end of 2012, has been marred with technical glitches and corruption allegations. In a nutshell, it is a controversial and inefficient government project that lacked a solid grand design.
From the very substantial background of the program, Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi has claimed that the project is mandated by the Law on Population Administration. The government, as stipulated in Article 101, is obliged to develop a database of citizenship identity numbers (NIK) in five years.
A recent worldwide survey of Internet download speeds placed Palembang and the East Java capital of Surabaya near the bottom of the pile, both finishing in the bottom 12 in average download speed. An Internet user in Surabaya reportedly has to wait for up to an hour to download a song off the Web, which in this day and age is unacceptable.
If successful, the state hopes the initiative will pave the way for a secure national ID system, or e-KTP. The end game, however, must be to develop a more efficient bureaucracy and to cut red tape.
The spread of ICT devices has been remarkable. Given that the Internet did not came into public use until the 1990s, it has totally changed the rules of the game as the corporate world knew it. It has been the most vigorous catalyst of change and has been totally instrumental in creating deep social and organizational changes in a way that is nothing short of a paradigm shift.
With the new system, citizens can submit a complaint online on issues concerning the House of Representatives or law enforcement.
According to House Speaker Marzuki Alie, under the new system, citizens can monitor the progress of their reports online.
Read more: Indonesia Launches Online Public Information Services