Alogoskoufis, speaking during the midst of a crucial week with the tabling and expected vote on a ground-breaking amendment to unify and reform the bank sector pension system, addressed delegates during the 3rd E-Government Forum, entitled "Government of the Future", an event sponsored by the "Economist" group. "In Greece, unfortunately, the concepts of a Society of Information and e-government, because of a lack of consistent planning during the first three years of the 3rd Community Support Framework's (CSF) implementation, were considered as a jumbled sum of IT projects in the public sector, which by some magical manner were expected to ensure an improvement in the state's productivity, simply transforming 'wooden' stamps into electronic ones," the minister said.
In pointing to a consistent theme enunciated by ruling New Democracy (ND) prior to the March 2004 general elections that brought ND to power, and repeatedly cited afterwards by the Karamanlis government's ministers, Alogoskoufis emphasised that new technologies also comprise a "primary tool for adopting more transparent procedures to curb corruption".
While indirectly criticising the previous PASOK government for what he called oversights in implementing information technology in the public sector, the minister said his government has doubled the number of related contracts for IT projects in the past few months and reached up to 60 percent higher EU funding absorption rates compared to the 2000-03 period.
"... the government, via the IT committee, will unveil a new 'digital strategy' for the country during the next planning period, 2007-2013 ... The new digital strategy will place the citizen, whether he or she is a businessperson, student, employee or whatever, at the centre of the Information Society programme," he said.
The government's top economic planner cited a new investment law, existing operational programmes and an envisioned law laying down the groundwork for public/private partnerships as the tools necessary to boost development.
"Greece, despite the fact that it lost valuable time over the past decade in terms of exploiting information technology and e-government, can now find its pace. In order to achieve this it must exploit every possible tool within the framework of a digital strategy being prepared by the government," he concluded.
Quelle: Athens News Agency, 30.06.2005
