The comments come as the UN this month ranked Vietnam 10th out of 14 Southeast Asian countries in terms of e-government readiness, behind Singapore, which was placed first and China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The report, from the UN’s Public Administration and Development Division, acknowledged e-government strategies were difficult for developing countries to implement on the ground.
“At least 60 per cent of e-government projects in developing countries fail and about half waste taxpayer’s money,” the report said.
The deputy director of the Khanh Hoa IT and Integrated Data Centre, Mai Hong Son, complained each province and city was having to find its own way online as there were no clear regulations on server location or administrative network management.
“We launched www.khanhhoa.gov.vn in June, but we are still only using the website to collect public suggestions on how we can perfect it.
“It’s also an Intranet service for some provincial agencies, but there is no Internet access yet,” Son said.
He said the centre was negotiating with an Internet service provider to locate a server at the centre, but could not say when it would go live.
The director of the Lao Cai IT Centre, Nguyen Van Thang, said the provincial website at www.laocai.gov.vn had only 20 per cent of its planned content and would take some time to complete.
“The website was launched in October of last year, but its content is incomplete because of the time it takes the local tourism, land management and information and culture agencies to provide the information and update it,” Thang said.
“The provincial authorities said the agencies were obliged to provide information for the website, but we have to train the staff who would process this data.”
Ho Chi Minh City is also falling behind schedule in its plans for e-governance by 2005, according to Hoang Le Minh, the deputy director of the city’s Department of Science and Technology.
“None of the 28 planned projects have been approved, because we do not have the skilled workforce needed to implement the projects,” Minh said.
Quelle: Vietnam Economic Times, 22.11.2003
