|
Bandar Seri Begawan – Brunei ranked 104 out of 198 in the
2006 global e-government study conducted by US Brown University.
"Brunei's ranking is very good,"
said Karl Verhulst, CA (formerly known as
Computer Associates) Director-Marketing for Asia South.
"Ranked in the
top five are countries like Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. The key things that
differentiate Brunei from these countries are that
these countries are very much wired-up. For instance, South Korea has a high Internet
penetration in the world."
Mr Velhurst
added that there is a close correlation between Internet access and the
capability to deliver e-government initiatives. As for some of the typical
recommendations put up by the study, it stated that the website should be
easy to use and should not have complicated language. The website should
also link with other ministries and be frequently updated.
Mr Velhurst
said a lot of progress has been made on Brunei's e-Government, with a lot of
portals having been made. "However, a lot of collaboration and focus
needs to be made, so too is the marketing aspect to the Bruneian
citizens," he said. "In Brunei there are 10 ministries on
the portals where there are information on what
are they're doing. The first step in e-government is the portal of information."
CA Malaysia yesterday
mooted that effective IT management will be the key to Brunei's success in the next wave of
its e-Government initiative. This was shared with over 150 government
officials at a recently held e-Government conference themed "Achieving
Effective IT Management".
"The strong
commitment and foresight of the Brunei Government saw the successful
establishment of the essential framework and infrastructure as well as the
adoption and awareness of the e-Government programme in ministries and
other key stakeholders over the last five years," said Queenie Wong,
Managing Director of CA Malaysia at the conference.
The nation is now
embarking on its second wave of development, which is focused on more
citizen-centric projects.
"Governments
around the globe are currently at various stages of e-government
implementation as they endeavour to stay current
with technological advances and enhance efficiency to better serve their
citizens," added the MD.
"Brunei has made good progress over
the last few years, and we are indeed delighted to have ongoing
opportunities to share our expertise in e-government to further assist in
their endeavour."
Commenting on the
Brunei Government's focus on delivering services that are more citizen-centred, result-oriented and market based, Karl Verhulst said "Governments are faced with
increasing pressure to address ongoing challenges such as the digital
divide, privacy and security concerns and evolution of technology.
"This makes it
even more crucial for governments to be able to manage their IT resources
effectively and efficiently in order to ensure that they are maximising their investments and are keeping costs
down," he added.
"The development
and implementation of e-government is an ongoing process in which there
will always be new technologies to consider, new policies and standards to
meet, upgrades and maintenance to current systems.
"Without
effective IT management, the process will result in considerable ICT
investments and not receiving any measurable returns. The failure to
respond quickly and effectively to the ever-changing ICT landscape would
ultimately result in barriers to a successful e-government."
Industry experts at
the conference addressed key issues critical to ensuring the successful
deployment of Virtual Brunei Online. These included the strategies and ways
to align IT investments to achieve maximum ROI, how to improve IT services
according to ITIL best practices, managing IT operation costs and better IT
risk management.
|
