ICTs in Government
Stabroek News
December 29, 2006
This week we return to our central focus on ICTs in the development process. It had previously been observed that a number of countries, particularly developing ones tend to concentrate their attention on one or other of the following four ICT sub-sectors: Infrastructure Development, E-government, Human Resource Capacity Building and the Legal and Regulatory Framework.
E-Government
Government has not traditionally enjoyed the benefit of a good name in relation to the provision of its services to citizens who typically view the Government or Public Service as a slow bureaucratic leviathan with an indolent and de-motivated workforce seemingly intent solely on frustrating the daylights of the general populace. I once heard the late President Burnham describe a public servant as someone who spends a significant portion of the day imbibing copious glasses of ice water and the rest of the day expelling it from his system.
There is no doubt however that a well run and efficient government service is necessary for development. Indeed citizens nowadays apply the same standards of efficiency to the public service as they do to the private sector and have similar expectations for performance in relation to the provision of government services.
Many governments have therefore turned to information and communications technologies in the effort to re-engineer and improve the level of services they have traditionally provided to their citizens and indeed to invent and offer newer and innovative ones. This is a phenomenon that has come to be known as "e-government". It may also simply be viewed as moving citizen services online, i.e. the technology-enabled transformation of government to reduce costs and at the same time promote economic development, increase transparency, improve service delivery and public administration, and facilitate the advancement of an information society. Formally it may be defined as:
The use of information and communications technologies to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management.
E-Government Modalities
E-Government usually describes relationships across 3 modalities:
1. Government to Citizen: deals with the relationship between government and citizens. G2C allows citizens to access government information and services instantly, conveniently, from everywhere, by use of multiple channels.
2. Government to Business: consists of e-interactions between government and the private sector. The opportunity to conduct online transactions with government reduces red tape and simplifies regulatory processes, therefore helping businesses to become more competitive.
3. Government to Government: Governments depend on other levels of government within the state to effectively deliver services and allocate responsibilities. In promoting citizen-centric service, a single access point to government is the ultimate goal, for which cooperation among different governmental departments and agencies is necessary. G2G facilitates the sharing of databases, resources and capabilities, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of processes.
The Traditional Way of Conducting
Business with the Government
Traditionally the interaction between a citizen or business and a government agency takes place in a government ministry, office or agency. The ministry is often the interface between the citizen and the service required. Typically a public servant or public officer will receive and process some request made by a citizen or member of the public. The Revenue Authority, Deeds Registry, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance etc., provide examples of agencies where on a daily basis, interaction takes place between the general public and the Government in relation to the provision of varied services. Many of these organizations have introduced computer applications in an effort to improve their service level. Unfortunately, in many cases, these systems and applications are mere computerized versions of the old manual processes and as such the power and sophistication of the computer have not been leveraged to the full extent necessary to produce efficiently re-engineered services that are less costly and significantly enhanced.
Next time, these concepts will be further explored to see the efforts undertaken by others, particularly our sister Caricom countries to transform their government services, and a determination made of the extent to which they have benefited. We will of course also examine the initiatives being taken here in our own country to address this important issue of streamlining the provision of government services to make them transparent, more efficient and less costly.
Please permit me, in the spirit of the festive season, to wish all readers a healthy, successful and prosperous 2007.