If efficiency really is the aim then technology is the answer, and we could look to a small northern European nation as an example
In all the recent talk of making government more efficient and responsive to citizens’ needs, an issue that needs spotlighting is the role of technology in facilitating efficient service delivery.
To date the Namibian state has been slow to harness modern communication and data storage technologies to improve service delivery and the all-round customer experience of citizens when accessing public services. In fact, for the most part Namibia is still very much in the 20th century when it comes to public sector service delivery and customer engagement.
Take a recent experiential episode this writer underwent.
An application was submitted for a duplicate identity card after a break-in and theft that left the writer ID-less.
To say that the process of applying for a duplicate national document is time consuming and unnecessarily complicated would be dabbling in gross understatement. The amount of paperwork and shuffling from one counter to another in order to be verified or noted down in large paper ledgers really does not speak to any sort of efficiency. And so it proved, for two months later – it still takes an astonishing two months to issue an identity card in Namibia upon enquiry, this writer was informed that there was some sort of muddling of official file numbers and the card could not be issued.
A hand written note was issued and the applicant told to go and sort it out at Home Affairs head office. No official email was sent, despite a request for such, and no particular official at head office was informed of the situation. In fact, nothing was flagged on a software based computerised system.
All the applicant had in hand was handwritten note with a fading official stamp on it to indicate that this affair was annoyingly real.
This was happening in late 2015 as the Ministry of Home Affairs was apparently close to switching over to a largely computerized administrative system.
The matter was taken up with Home Affairs officials but as of early December 2015, the duplicate ID card situation had still not been resolved and will probably only reach closure in early 2016, more than six months after the application was lodged.
This sort of thing happens across all government sectors and causes untold frustration and annoyance amongst citizens, tourists, investors and everyone else who has to make use of government services of some sort at some point.
The point is that this sort of basic service inefficiency is not and should not be the way of the 21st century.
And there actually is something that can be done about this.
The Estonia-way
For those who have not heard of it, Estonia is a small northeastern European country with a population of less than 1,5 million and not much in the way of natural resource wealth.
Even so, Estonia ranks amongst the best in the world when it comes to human health, wealth and well-being.
Part of the reason for this is that Estonia is arguably the most tech-savvy country in the world and was amongst the early adopters of the concept of e-government. And it appears to work wonderfully, as all eyes are today on this small country to gauge what lessons can be learned. Estonia is quite literally the future of government and society.
No Estonian need stand in a queue in a government building and be subjected to needless time-wasting and vexatious interactions with a frustrating and lethargic front-counter bureaucracy.
All an Estonian, no matter whether in the city or the woods, needs is an Internet connection and a device to go online with and their affairs can be conducted and handled within minutes or hours, not weeks and months.
Everything from applying for ID and passport documents, as well as hunting and fishing licenses, to filing taxes, or registering a business can be done in minutes from anywhere, and many will be issued in minutes or a day, while others take a little longer, but certainly not weeks or a month. And they even vote online from the comfort of their homes, or anywhere else in the world where an Estonian might find themselves on election day.
In fact, in Estonia, everything that requires interaction with a state agency or business enterprise can be done online and no one need even go to a shop anymore. These are the hallmarks of a national system which recognises that people have more important things to do than queue for documents and permits, and that leveraging technology just makes everything cheaper, faster and altogether more efficient.
All this was achieved in less than a decade.
Namibia too has a relatively small population, albeit widely spread, and could actually pull this off if it emulated the Estonian way.
Technology is already so ubiquitous that harnessing it to achieve efficiency in service delivery just seems such a no-brainer. And with tech improving all the time, there really is no excuse to not go this route.
Besides, Namibia already appears to have a bilateral agreement in place with Estonia, and it concerns e-governance. Voila!
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Quelle/Source: Insight Namibia, 15.12.2015
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