The latest move will also serve as a tool to enhance productivity and improve the quality of government services. Bangladesh Secretariat, the hub of country's administrative functions, will come under e-governance in line with the latest move. A six-member committee has been formed recently to make specific recommendations on implementing the government project.
Acting Establishment Secretary Safar Raz Hossain was made the chief of the committee, sources concerned said.
Once established, the online system will facilitate monitoring and surveillance of government functions in a more integrated way, reducing a lot of money which is now being spent in the traditional system. "All correspondence on different issues, staff appointments, promotions and training will be done in a very quick and smooth way in the new system," one source told this correspondent.
The latest government move, however, did not say anything on establishing an e-procurement system. The online procurement system is one of the most popular e-government initiatives in neighbouring countries to address corruption and lack of transparency in government procurement.
Malaysia's e-procurement system, known as e-Prohelan, has over 4,000 government procurement points and over 30,000 suppliers are registered with the system.
It supports the entire procurement cycle from request for quotations, through request for tender, to direct purchase. It provides easy procedures for comparing quotations and specifications of goods and services offered.
Besides accountability and transparency, other benefits of e-Prohelan include increased efficiency, reduced time for processing and reduced operational costs due to electronic retrieval and submission of quotations.
Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore governments have also introduced online procurement system to increase transparency, reduce corruption and minimise the time and cost of processing tenders, according to the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), a private think-tank.
The BEI has already recommended allowing revenue budget for recruitment of ICT (information and communication technology) human resources in government offices.
"It is important to recruit ICT human resources through the revenue budget to ensure the sustainability of e-government projects, many of which are launched under the development budget through financial assistance from donor agencies," the BEI said in a study of e-government in Bangladesh. Highlighting the potential of the ICT as the vector of economic growth the BEI study placed some specific action proposals for addressing many of the existing weaknesses in governance in Bangladesh.
The proposals include establishing an e-procurement system, creating incentive for championing ICT, establishing a maintenance team to be shared by different offices, building internet kiosks around the country, creating one-stop government portal, developing a scheme for national ID, creating online payment gateway, introducing cyber laws and setting up an e-government resource centre.
On creating incentive for championing ICT, the BEI said an incentive structure should be introduced for the promoters and champions of ICT in the government. The existing ICT policy that states 'ICT-literacy shall be evaluated in the annual confidential report of officials' should be implemented to ensure utilisation of ICT in the public services.
On introducing cyber laws, the BEI said the enactment of cyber laws is becoming increasingly important. "Some of the issues to be included in the legal framework are laws to protect intellectual property, laws for acceptance of documents in electronic format (such as downloaded documents), cyber-terrorism laws that protect against unauthorised hacking and laws to enable electronic authentication."
There is a further need for an Electronic Certification Authority designated by the government, which should have the authority to provide electronic certification to organisations and individuals.
On establishing a maintenance team, the BEI said the government should appoint a technically competent maintenance team, possibly located within the ministry of science and ICT, that can be called up for maintenance and other ICT-related needs when required.
"The ICT Policy should incorporate the idea of a shared ICT Cell rather than one for each government office," the study said.
The BEI said building internet kiosks for community access has been an effective model in other countries such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka where internet penetration rates are low.
"The government should develop partnership with NGOs and the private sector to establish such kiosks," it said.
On creating one-stop government portal, the BEI said the government should create a one-stop government portal that is designed to serve the specific needs of citizens and businesses.
The portal that is now touted as national portal of Bangladesh is not comprehensive and also not genuinely user-friendly in assisting users to access necessary information and services.
"Though this is not a high-priority item for the present time, it will become an important issue in the next few years as an increasing number of e-government services go online and a single entry-point to various services becomes increasingly needed," the study commented.
Mentioning the importance of the study, BEI President Farooq Sobhan said the growing and expanding use of ICT through the use of informatics can help improve governance in multiple ways.
Autor: Raihan M Chowdhury
Quelle: The Financial Express, 24.09.2004
