ICTs in Government Pt. III
Stabroek News
February 2, 2007
Examining the government website of a country provides a good insight into its state of e-readiness and how far it has progressed along the road of improving the delivery of government services to citizens by the application of technology.
One should however avoid coming to the erroneous conclusion that a good looking and impressive government Internet website automatically means that a country has made significant progress in automating government services, and that its people have at their disposal a wide range of efficient electronic facilities that make doing business with the government easy and hassle free. The condition as they say is necessary but by no means sufficient.
Stages of e-Government Development
Last time we saw that in general e- government development can be classified into four distinct stages as follows:
* Stage 1. Information is generally available to the public on-line. Government laws, policies, rules, regulations etc relating to a wide range of social economic and financial matters can be obtained from the Internet websites of the relevant government ministries and agencies. Application forms for these services are also available on-line and can be downloaded for completion and subsequent submission to the agency.
* Stage 2. Countries at stage 2 may have developed a single government portal in the Office of the Prime Minister or the President. Some services may have been further automated permitting on-line completion and submission of application forms.
* Stage 3. Infrastructure development and re-engineering of services are evident in countries in stage 3, also inter-agency connectivity permitting the access and sharing of information to facilitate the conduct of business. For example, an agency processing a request for a service that requires the applicant to be tax compliant, may be able to verify this electronically by reference to a relevant data resource provided by the revenue authority.
* Stage 4. Countries at this stage feature full deployment of intelligent electronic government services enhanced with appropriate e-payment applications
Developments in CARICOM
Caricom has placed great emphasis on the development of the e-government sector of member states. The Caribbean Center for Development and Administration (CARICAD) is the regional agency that has responsibility for spearheading regional e-government activity and providing assistance to member states in areas such as building awareness, conducting e-readiness surveys, stimulating private sector involvement and encouraging legislative reform for accommodating ICT.
Member States e-Government Facilities
An analysis of the government websites of Caricom countries undertaken in 2002 to determine the facilities available on these sites and to get an insight into the level of e-government development of these countries revealed that most were somewhere between stages one and two.
Not very much has changed since then, although most of the countries have enhanced their websites by improving their appearance and navigability. In Haiti and Suriname, there still seems not to have been the evolvement of a central site owned and operated by the government.
The following information can be obtained from Caricom member states government websites:
* Current Government news, announcements and events
* Information about the Cabinet and Government structure
* Government Ministries and Departments. Many individual ministries and agencies now tend to have their own websites. A listing of these with appropriate hyperlinks is a useful feature to have available on the central governmental site.
* Application Forms for common government services such as the granting of marriage and other licences, issuing of birth and death certificates and passports etc.
* Important publications and reports
* Frequently asked questions or FAQs.
In Guyana, there is no central website for the government although the Office of the President http://www.op.gov.gy/, and the Guyana Government Information Agency (GINA) www.gina.gov.gy perform this function to some degree.
These sites are well put together but their webmasters should recognize that the liberal use of video and to a lesser extent audio content limits the effective coverage that they will achieve at least in Guyana since most subscribers have dial up as opposed to broadband Internet access.
Readers are encouraged to visit the government websites of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados and to examine the features available from the sites and so get some insight of the extent to which those governments have automated their services.
Further afield the websites of the USA and Singapore www.usa.gov, and www.gov.sg are examples of countries in advanced stages of e-government development.
The "Reach" feature in Singapore http://app.reach.gov .sg/reach/default.aspx presents an innovative use of technology by that administration to encourage citizen discussion and debate on current government policies and initiatives.