Richard Kerby, who was directly involved in the 2010 UN e-Government Survey in which Brunei was ranked 68, spoke to the media yesterday, during the final day of a two-day workshop on 'Measurement and Evaluation Tool for e-Government Readiness (METER)'.
"We looked at the national portal and then the five ministry portals which are health, education, finance, labour and social services and concluded that Brunei's portals in general have a lot of information but very little e-services and very little opportunities for citizens to give their views through discussion forums or blogs," said Kerby.
"We also found that the Brunei government very rarely uses social networking tools,'• he added, before recommending that there be more e-services that are "citizen-centric," instead of assuming what they want.
"Talk to your citizens, find out what their needs are and then try to meet those needs by creating the services they want," advised Kerby.
Meanwhile, the METER, an online interactive tool, was designed to assist governments and decision makers in developing, monitoring, refining and improving context within which information and communication technologies (ICT) are used to transform the government.
"This workshop is trying to identify what the perceived areas of strengths and weaknesses are," Kerby told the press.
METER consists of five main pillars that are considered essential to the establishment of a supportive enabling environment for e-Government - commitment, legal, vision and policy, organisation and technology - which can influence a government's capability to effectively harness technology for government transformation.
Under the invitation of the Prime Minister's Office, Kerby's programme also includes a methodology workshop, a review of the e-Government strategy and meeting with key ministries that directly provide citizen-centric services.
According to a press statement, the programme hopes to improve the government's efforts in providing e-Government services to the public as well as to increase Brunei's ranking in the UN e-Government Survey for 2012.
According to Kerby, more focus is needed on how to deliver e-services to the public.
"The goal of the workshop is not to improve the e-Government rankings but to identify what your citizens are looking for and help you meet needs," he said.
"What's lacking is the development of e-services so my hope is that the different ministries will follow this one vision that your e-Government Strategy 2009 - 2014 has, buy into it and start delivering the type of services that your people want," he asserted.
The workshop was participated by key e-Government players within the Brunei government such as the Deputy Permanent Secretary (IT and e-Government) at the Prime Minister's Office, Abdul Mutalib bin POKSS Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yusof as the Overall Government Chief Information Officer as well as Chief Information Officers and Chief Technical Officers from all ministries and officers from the e-Government National Centre.
In 2008, Brunei formed the e-Government National Centre under the purview of the Prime Ministers' Office.
It is the centralised organisation that focuses on IT in Civil Service to oversee the development of IT personnel, centralise procurement of IT equipments and to provide common Government-wide applications and shared IT Services among all ministries.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Narissa Noor
Quelle/Source: Bru Direct, 17.07.2010
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