This observation was made by Hj Azhar bin Hj Ahmad, the Deputy Permanent Secretary (IT & E-Government) at the Prime Minister's Office, during the second session of the THiNKBIG Technology Forum at the Empire Hotel & Country Club yesterday.
Sharing his thoughts during an open discussion on 'e-Government: Connecting with the Citizens', Hj Azhar said: "His Majesty has consented to the implementation of the e-Government since 2000 with a budget allocation of $1 billion. However, its usage so far is still unsatisfactory.
"Similarly, IT applications, which are to facilitate the public's dealings with the government, are also unsatisfactory when compared with other countries in the region."
According to him, the key points in His Majesty's titah were to calls for an increase in adoption and usage of e-Government, as well as IT applications, in enabling and improving public service delivery.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary noted that a lot of work had been carried out since 2000, much of which centred on the building of IT infrastructure and back-office systems.
During the Civil Service Day, some of the e-Government services that were ready, and offers that were still in the pipeline, were put up on display.
Using an analogy to explain the situation, Hj Azhar said: "Building (an) e-Government successfully is like 'baking a cake'.
You have to have the right ingredients and approach. Less butter, it tastes different.
Too high a temperature and it burns."
"E-Government is a re-invention of the way or process in which the government provides more efficient and more effective service to our stakeholders - the citizens, businesses and civil servants - through the use of ICT," he said.
"Rightfully pointed out by His Majesty, central to this success in e-Government (amongst others) are: the undertaking (of) effective strategies to increase usage and adoption; and, implementing the right process and installing the right IT application to support this business function."
According to the Deputy Permanent Secretary, this should aim towards the one guiding principle in the e-Government Strategic Plan i.e. offering "citizen-centric services".
Apart from having the "right funding", Brunei's e-Government should have its own have its own marketing resource team tasked to promote e-Government actively, said Hj Azhar.
"Spending millions on a project will be useless if it is not being used or adopted...
(Therefore) promotion programmes must be there to sell the benefits of e-Government and make a compelling reason for the public to use it."
He also underlined that Brunei should capitalise on the high mobile phone penetration per capita by offering government services over mobile phones or "mobile government", as it would be advantageous utilising mobile phones - an avenue that people today are comfortable with.
Touching on the findings of a Citizen Survey that was carried out last year, Hj Azhar noted that the top five government services that people felt "needed attention or needed to incorporate e-Government initiatives" were:
- Education;
- Employment & Professional Training;
- Business Licensing, Registration & Approval;
- Home & Utilities; and,
- Personal Health.
"With the e-Government Strategic Plan launched in May 2009, it is timely for us to review our implementation approach and identify quick wins within the next 12 months," he said.
Hj Azhar told the Bulletin that a "one-stop portal" containing all available government services was in the progress of implementation.
"We are currently building (the one-stop portal) up... it (is being) led by the e-Government National Centre," he said. "We hope to see it running in the first quarter of next year."
According to him, the implementation of the portal will go through three stages.
"The first stage is... (more about listing) out information of the services," he said. "The second stage is to incorporate the transactional phase, which enables the public to conduct transactions, so basically, payments.
The next stage is where we can interact with the citizens."
Asked which services would actually be available in the first quarter of next year through the e-Government portal, he said: "Not all the services will be ready, so we will only select the services which are ready...
We will incorporate (other services) when they are ready, in stages."
Asked what had caused the e-Government services currently available to be deemed "unsatisfactory", he said: "In 2000 when it started, the government was more focused on building up infrastructure and building up their back-office system, so that's why there are currently no services going out to the public."
"What we are now actually focusing on are the services that are to be used by the citizens.
We are looking at some things like home and utilities. For example, the payments of bills online, so people don't have to come to the counters to pay."
He said that one of the areas being focused on was that of applications, such as applications to transfer students or for passports.
Rather than having people go and queue at the counters of government offices, people would be able to handle such matters online.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary said: "This is something that we try to urge the agencies to look into i.e. their processes and how they can improve to give the citizens another channel for them to get that service from the government.
"Another example is the Land Transport Department; currently they have a system, their back-office system.
So what we're doing is asking them to improve it, to expand it, so that the citizens can benefit from it when applying online for the renewal of licences, road tax and such.
"We hope that we can have a big win for the small projects we're looking at currently, and the citizens can benefit from it, so the citizens will recognise the meaning of e-Government.
"Right now they don't see the fruits, so we hope they will see that the fruits will ripen in the next few years."
Yesterday's open forum also saw Pg Sarimah Pg Latiff, the CEO of Infocom Federation of Brunei, and Mr Khoong Hock Yun from IDA Singapore discussing strategies on how governments can connect with citizens.
Mr Yahkup Menudin, Chief Executive at AiTi, moderated the session.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): [Danial Norjidi]
Quelle/Source: Bru Direct, 28.10.2010
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