FutureGov spoke to Stela Mocan, Executive Director of the e-Government Centre, about the development and implementation of the major e-government projects, such as Government Cloud, or as it’s called in Moldova, M-Cloud.
Government Cloud
The M-Cloud programme was launched in February this year. “We use cloud computing technology to address some of the challenges that we have in government”, says Mocan. “Every ministry invests huge funds in hardware servers which they use at a limited capacity. M-cloud provides these services at low investment”.
Many ministries have started migrating their information systems and services to M-cloud. “The Prime Minister approved a ‘Cloud-First Policy’ in 2011, requiring ministries to invest in digitising services and not in hardware”, Mocan informs us. “The ministries have to move their systems and services into M-cloud. We are visiting ministries and explaining to them, face-to-face, the opportunities and capabilities of M-cloud”.
M-Cloud offers many different services to government agencies, such as authentication and access control (security related tasks including identity management and transaction authorisation), payment services (allowing agencies to accept electronic payments), and notification services (allowing agencies to send notifications to citizens).
The eGC is working with the IT departments of many countries in the European Union to develop projects such as M-Cloud. “We have synchronised our initiatives with the European Union agenda”, states Mocan. “Our projects are funded by loans from the World Bank, though some are co-funded by our government”.
E-services
Another major project that eGC launched last year is an e-services portal for citizens. Launched in May 2012, the portal is a gateway to all electronic services offered by the Modovan government. The portal also provides details on all traditional, non-electronic government services. Currently, 331 services are listed on the portal, while 72 are e-services.
FutureGov spoke to Victoria Rosca, Executive Consultant at the eGC, about the e-services offered to citizens. “One of our most popular e-service is the e-criminal record certificate”, says Rosca.
“The service certifies that the applicant does not have a criminal record or action pending against them. Almost 90 per cent of citizens who apply for the certificate, such as students applying for academic programmes abroad or citizens applying for visas for other countries, do it online through the e-services portal”.
Business owners can now apply for licenses for more than 30 types of business activities online through the portal. “Many of these e-services are already connected with the mobile digital signature”, says Rosca. The mobile digital signature allows citizens to authenticate their identities through their mobile devices to access public services.
The eGC has created video guides uploaded to its YouTube page on using the e-services offered on the portal.
Payment gateway
Another initiative that the eGC has developed and launched in April this year is a government payment gateway which will allow citizens to pay online for public services such as population documentation services or traffic fines.
“We have run consultations with the National Bank, Ministry of Finance, and private banks”, states Mocan. “The process lasted more than one and a half years. We have integrated different payment operators, allowing citizens to pay via credit card, online banking. If PayPal comes to Moldova, we’ll integrate that too”.
The eGC is currently working on the development of a government interoperability platform that is scheduled for launch in late 2013. The platform will facilitate the exchange of information and data among government agencies, and enhanced connectedness and communication. Citizens will be able to offer personal data to government only once, and public institutions will be able to reuse this data for the delivery of services.
Read the first part of FutureGov’s coverage of Moldova’s e-government initiatives here.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Sumedha Jalote
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 19.07.2013
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