Dr Zainal Hasibuan, Vice Chairman, Indonesia ICT Council, told FutureGov Asia Pacific that Indonesia needs to take lessons from Singapore and Malaysia to ensure that ICT policies and regulations are successfully implemented.
“Over the years there has been a lot of ICT policymaking in Indonesia, but the impact from all this policy has not been felt. There have been no effective measures to ensure that policies are followed through to the letter,” said Hasibuan.
Indonesia needs to find ways to enforce ICT policies and regulations more effectively, and empower the relevant government institutions to action them, he added.
Though a state budget is in place for government ICT projects, the mandate to invest in ICT across ministries has not been sufficiently strong.
“An uncoordinated government budget for ICT investment is one of the root causes of the problem,” said Hasibuan. “Unlike in other countries, such as Malaysia and Singapore, if a project is to go ahead it must have approval from all the relevant institutions.”
A lack of coordination on ICT development across government has made it difficult for the Indonesia ICT Council, which was created in 2006 with the aim of accelerating the deployment and use of ICT in government, to chart progress.
“Often we do not find out about ICT projects until they blow up in the media. Government ICT is not being approached in a joined up way. We are missing out on an opportunity to share capacity and information. At the moment, the sum of the parts is not equal to the whole.”
A ministry with clout, such as the Ministry of Finance, is needed to oversee ICT projects, and indicators introduced to gauge their success or failure, he proposed.
Hasibuan noted that progress on key projects such as the Palapa Ring, a fibre optic network to connect Indonesia’s 33 regional provinces, and the National Single Window, a platform to simplify international trade, had been slow, with projects up to two years behind schedule.
“We have more than 450 different cultures in this country, and none of them know each other well enough. We need broadband to change that.”
“And we need the National Single Window to smoothen the trade process and boost our economy,” he said.
Under the 2010 e-government masterplan, 2014 has been set as the new target year for the completion of the Palapa ring, the National Single Window a year later.
A single national identity number (Indonesians currently have numerous ID numbers or none at all), E-Pendidikan (e-education), and e-government are also part of the masterplan, which has three core thrusts:
- Enhance and realign e-government processes and structures
- Empower and revitalise government agencies to carry out key strategic ICT projects
- Long term commitments to sustainable ICT investments
Hasibuan noted that the fate of the plan depended on leadership from the very top of government. “If our leadership is not in favour of ICT as an enabler, then we will continue to struggle with the same problems, year after year.”
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Robin Hicks
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 09.12.2010
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