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Tuesday, 19.03.2024
eGovernment Forschung seit 2001 | eGovernment Research since 2001

Cyprus lags well behind the majority of the EU member-states in digital skills and fast internet connections. A workshop dealing with electronic communications, held last week, observed that Cyprus is among the EU’s weakest countries as far as the digital economy was concerned.

According to the Digital Economy Social Index (Desi), cited by electronic communications commissioner Giorgos Michaelides Cyprus ranked 25th in the EU in digital banking, 26th in e-commerce and 25th in the development of businesses through technology.” We were 24th in the number of people with specific knowledge in electronic communications and last in the number of science graduates.

Cyprus ranked among the top countries when it came to non-economic uses of the internet such as downloading, games and films and the use of social media, said Michaelides. We are therefore not computer illiterates, but simply live in an environment that does not promote the digital economy or electronic transactions. For instance, we have been hearing about e-government for years, but its introduction has been moving at a snail’s pace.

Communications Minister Marios Demetriades admitted that slow bureaucratic procedures and the failure of state officials to take responsibility hindered implementation. There has been some progress with the tax department announcing yesterday that its electronic system Taxisnet was operational and people could submit their 2016 tax returns electronically. While it was a great step forward, why had it taken so long and when will other government departments follow?

Delays could be related to obstructionism by civil servants wanting to preserve public service jobs. If the state fully embraced the digital age, one third – if not more – of its employees would be redundant, but as they could not be fired, successive government never pursued e-government with any urgency.

The same probably applies to the banks which persist with an excessive number of branches. As there is a branch in every neighbourhood, people prefer to do their banking in the old-fashioned way. If it were more difficult to get to a bank, people would use digital banking to avoid the inconvenience of driving to the branch, looking for parking and then waiting in a long queue in order to be served.

If e-government was expanded there would be more need for higher internet speeds, the workshop was told, but it is foolish to wait for the slow-moving state to get its act together in five or 10 years. For a country that likes to call itself an international business centre and is at pains to attract more business, we would have thought that high internet speeds would have been a priority.

As for the politicians regularly moaning about high youth unemployment, they should consider what Michaelides told the workshop. He said surveys demonstrated a direct correlation of economic growth in countries with increased use of technology in terms of business expansion, new services and jobs for the young.

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Quelle/Source: Cyprus Mail, 25.05.2017

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