Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Bandar Seri Begawan - In order for any country to move towards the implementation of an e-government, several key issues needs to be properly addressed. These issues include ensuring the proper infrastructure is in place to allow the population, the people and the government, to be able to utilise the new system efficiently in their daily use.

This was highlighted in the presentation on "E-government and Role of the government and private sector in e-commerce development" conducted yesterday by Dr Afzaal Seyal, a senior lecturer at Institut Teknologi Brunei (ITB).

Dr Afzaal said that the digital or speed divide for internet connection had to be upgraded from 56 kilobytes per second to a broadband speed of 10 megabytes per second. He added that other issues also had to be looked into such as ensuring that e-government projects are budget-based rather than having project-based budgets, introducing a management for change, cadre creation, improving public cyber literacy and strategic alignment.

Based on a study conducted by consulting firm, Deloitte and Touche, six main stages were identified in the transition towards implementing an e-government. The first stage is the publishing and dissemination of information, which Dr Afzaal said that this is the level which Brunei is currently at. The next stages included the introduction of official two-way transactions with one department at a time, multipurpose portals, portal personalisation, clustering of common services and finally, full integration and enterprise transformation.

The senior lecturer said that the process of digitising government processes and services result in positive implications to governance and economic efficiency. He said that by using e-commerce technologies, governments can try to streamline the delivery of their services to the public, serving the citizen through diverse channels.

He went on to say that public authorities have to act in a fast-changing environment where international cooperation is imperative while there is a necessity to deal with special national demands.

"We have to stay in the world and today is the world of knowledge, the world of information," he said.

Dr Afzaal outlined several case studies on countries in the Middle East which have successfully implemented e-government strategies.

"What is of special interest is that many e-government projects are remarkable strategic innovations rather than merely online replicas of government services," he said.

He highlighted United Arab Emirates as one of the leaders in e-government development and implementation in the Middle East, with Dubai as the undisputed fore-runner of the seven Emirates. He said Dubai's e-government aimed at easing the lives of the people and business interactions with its government.

Among its developments in e-government was the e-citizen initiative, which allowed the people to carry out bill and fine payment online, subscribe to the police department to receive up-to-the-minute traffic reports and other updates via SMS and the use of internet to process tourist visa application, with a capacity to over 3,000 visa applications per day.

These are all areas which Brunei could look into and incorporate best practices for its own e-government, the senior lecturer noted.

The sultanate's progress towards the e-government initiative the substantial consideration of e-business, the establishment of the BIT

(Brunei Information Technology) Council and the i-Centre, the provision of operational set-up for SME's as well as the introduction of relevant legal framework to facilitate e-government.

Dr Afzaal delivered his presentation during the second day of the Isesco (Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) National Training Programme entitled "Potential of Electronic Commerce for SME's Development and Marketing in the Global Economy," which was held at ITB.

The three-day programme saw the involvement of some 26 participants, comprising mainly of local SMEs. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times