However, this appears rather far-fetched and highly unlikely to come true any time soon. Nepal’s rank slipped to 165 this year from 130 in 2003 in the United Nations E-government Survey—a clear evidence of government negligence on this vital front. During the same time, the Republic of Korea jumped up to the first position from 13th. Analysts argue that there are mainly two factors contributing to the South Korea’s phenomenal success—political will and ‘whole-of-government’ approach—which are essentially inseparable. A closer look reveals that both factors are missing in Nepal.
Many people are not aware of the fact that South Korea had assisted Nepal government to develop e-Government Master Plan Consulting Report (2006)—a landmark study that outlined strategies to enable transformation of public service delivery by ensuring citizens convenient access to government information and services. While the commitment of e-government transformation has always been quite convincing, the ranking says a lot about the state of affairs of Nepali e-government. It seems the government practically failed to implement the recommendations made by our friends from Seoul. What is even more worrisome is the fact that e-government is hardly part of the political debate.
A mounting body of evidence suggests that setbacks are common reality faced by reforms that do not have a strong commitment from the political leadership. E-government is primarily about change. Therefore, it will not get any traction without strong commitment from the heads of government. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to build a shared e-government vision, inspire trust, and garner wider stakeholder ownership without a committed political leadership.
The heads of government have an important role of communicating e-government vision to gather wider political and public support if successful implementation is to be obtained. South Korea successfully realized e-government through consistent leadership of successive presidents. The Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization was established to lead government innovation programs under the Roh Moo-Hyun administration. The strong support and interest shown by the successive presidents elevated e-government as the presidential agenda, making implementation smoother and faster in all government agencies.
Similarly, the US Congress also passed the ‘E-government Act’ to support e-government. The Office of E-government was established within the President’s Office of Management and Budget. The office’s main task was to improve and streamline transactions between the Federal Government and its various stakeholders.
Contrary to the US and South Korea, Nepal’s e-government projects have been sporadic and primarily driven by individual agencies. The Inland Revenue Department offers several innovative tax related e-services. Similarly, the Department of Transport Management provides a service that allows vehicle owners to receive due tax amount by entering the license plate number on the agency website. A world class data centre, where all government data will be stored is already up and running at the National Information Technology Center. Few other initiatives have come to fruition from individual efforts of some committed bureaucrats. But more needs to be done.
The nationwide implementation of e-government will demand moving away from the traditional bureaucratic practices of assigning e-government related responsibilities to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MoSTE) and the Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC). Such agencies can prescribe effective technological solutions, but might fall short when it comes to leading governance reform programs. Although individual agencies have to be encouraged to champion e-government to solve problems associated with administrative inefficiency and citizens’ convenience, they have proven ineffective when it comes to e-government. Therefore, e-government agenda has to be brought directly under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers.
Several senior Indian e-government experts are also now in favor of bringing e-government under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) instead of the Department of Information Technology. Former IT Secretary of the Union Government, R Chandrashekhar has said, “PMO can exercise a high level of intervention and therefore e-governance under it is highly recommended”. Similarly, Som Mittal, former head of NASSCOM asserted that “an authoritative body like the PMO is better equipped to maneuver projects that have to be executed unilaterally by states or where both central and state participation is required”.
Once the institutional arrangements are in place, the focus should be on horizontal integration by adopting the whole-of-government approach. The government information systems currently operate in silos. As a result, government agencies are not able to share information seamlessly. According to the Center for Electronic Governance, under the United Nations University, International Institute for Software Technology, “The whole-of-government approach involves a set of processes aimed at making agencies work together across portfolio boundaries to achieve shared goals and integrated responses to the issues of policy development, service delivery, and program management.” For example, in an ideal scenario, the Department of Passport will access the Ministry of Home Affairs’ information system to verify applicant’s citizenship before processing the application.
Convincing the government agencies to take the ‘whole-of-government’ approach will require committed leadership from the highest level of government. Furthermore, reformation of bureaucratic complexity will require total support from a committed government body that can flex its political and bureaucratic muscles to make government agencies comply with the new paradigm.
Therefore, if a broad based e-government transformation is to thrive in Nepal, the top political and bureaucratic leadership has to take strong ownership and carry out necessary actions in a timely manner. The Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has to take charge of the e-government affairs. The MoSTE’s role will be important, but should be concentrated on technical oversight and effective management of Information and Communication Technology in the government.
Learning from the international best practices, it would be safe to assume that an effective long term strategy would be to establish a Prime-ministerial Committee under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers to focus on all aspects of the government administrative reform and decentralization providing full support to the bureaucracy to ensure effective implementation of ‘whole-of-government’ strategies, policies, and programs. A think tank that focuses on long term planning on e-government transformation should pay off in the long run.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Bimal Pratap Shah
Quelle/Source: Republica, 03.12.2014
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