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 Bandar
Seri Begawan – The e-Government programme
is not just a big IT infrastructure project. It should be viewed as a
`change management project requiring changes in `mindset' and the way
things are traditionally done.
This was stated by Deputy Minister of Communications, Dato Paduka Hj Yusof bin Hj Abd Hamid,
who was the chief guest at the opening of the "Building High
Performance Government" seminar, yesterday, at the Orchid Garden Hotel
in Berakas.
Dato Hj Yusof
added that the successful implementation of Brunei's e-Government would revolutionise the way the government is serving the
nation in general and the public in particular.
In order for this to be achieved, he said, various steps in the
process of delivering a more efficient service must be re-engineered and
not just merely automated. In addition,
any outdated laws, rules and regulations should be
amended or rewritten where applicable to keep pace with the technological
changes, he added.
"An IT project such as e-Government can enable this
re-engineering process, resulting in a much faster and efficient delivery
of services at possibly lower transaction cost," said Dato Hj Yusof.
The deputy minister further added that the Government of His
Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei
Darussalam has allocated a huge sum in the developmental budget to
implement the e -Government programme.
"The amount allocated constitutes a significant percentage
out of the total budgetary allocation for the whole national development
plan and therefore emphasises_ its importance to
the government," he said.
"The successful implementation of e-Government projects is
crucial in taking the nation to the information age, and timely completion
is also critical.
"But what's most important is that, when completed, the
various applications contained in the e-Government projects should be fully
utilised," Dato Hj Yusof added.
"The huge amount of money invested must not go waste. In this
respect, we must ensure that applications are indeed relevant to our real
needs before they are even purchased."
The Deputy Minister also urged project developers not to be caught
in a situation in which applications `pushed to us' by vendors are those
designed for user sizes many times over the actual requirements, resulting
in them paying more than what they ought to.
"I believe this is an important precaution we must all take
since there are still many projects in the pipeline for
implementation," he added, disclosing that the e-MinCom
project is almost ready and is now awaiting integration work to be
completed before the first service is rolled out.
"Another crucial part is adequate human capacity planning
besides physical infrastructure development in ensuring the success of the
e-Government project, where the definition of success should be expanded to
cover the ability to provide sufficient training for locals who could later
take over, operate and manage the systems well after the end of the
completion date.
"New methods for acquiring and developing its workforces to
become more knowledgeable, efficient and productive should continuously be
pursued," said the Deputy Minister.
Jointly organised by BAG Network, Accenture and Oracle, the one-day seminar was meant to
promote the sharing of experiences amongst the three organisations.
Also in attendance at the seminar was Pg Dato
Paduka Hj Ismail, Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister's
Office, several other senior government officers as well as officials from
private sector organisations.
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