Website Contest For Ministries, Department
By Hadi DP Mahmud

Bandar Seri Begawan - In a bid to improve public service delivery, the Department of Information will be holding an official website competition for ministries and departments under His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam's Government, according to a media release.

"The move is aimed at improving the image of the ministries and departments under the government while providing updates and important information to end-users from time to time," Acting Director of the Department of Information, Hj Mahrub Hj Murni told The Brunei Times yesterday.

The competition, open to all ministries and government departments, however, is voluntary. It is divided into two categories - the Ministry category and the Department category. Hj Mahrub said the websites will be judged based on various criteria, such as creativity, user-friendliness and overall content.

Besides calls from prominent members of the civil service to promote e-government initiatives in the past, end-users have also repeatedly called on the authorities to update their official websites after having raised concerns on difficulties in getting up-to-date information

A global e-government study by America's Brown University last year said that Brunei was ranked 106th in the e-government ratings. The sultanate occupied the 35th position the previous year.

Another study from Japan's Waseda University showed that Brunei was ranked 27 out of the 32 sampled countries this year.

In 1999, the Asean Secretariat recorded 317.46 PC users out of every 10,000 Bruneian inhabitants. The latest statistics provided by the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AiTi) claims that as of June 2007 there were 44.92 PC users for every 100 Bruneians - a 14-fold increase in the span of eight years.

"It's about high time such a competition or any initiative intended to improve the status of e-government in the country is held," said a local IT specialist.

"The younger generation nowadays, looks to the Internet for the latest information available around the globe. Besides the local media, where else can the public acquire reliable and up-to-date information on government-related events or issues, but the government itself?" said the IT specialist, who requested anonymity.

A briefing for interested ministries and departments will be held today at the Information Department building.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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