E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

My mom always grumbles a lot towards the end of April... It's the time of the year when the tax return forms have to be submitted... My mom HATES it to the core.. I always hear her moot on how troublesome it is to send it by post and to deliver it personally. But now all of that could be done online through the government website http://www.hasil.org.my/english/eng_index.asp (my mom never grumbles in April anymore).

Well online tax filing brings me to the focus of today's post - E-Government.

E-Government is a tool used by the government to efficiently support the public. It is used to disseminate information and to increase the convenience, accessibility and quality of communication and interaction with the respective parties (it's true as my mom don't complain about tax filing anymore). I used the term respective parties because E-Government is not for the public (citizens) alone, but also for three other parties namely, the business community, other counties' government and the government employees.

E-Government was sparked by the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project in 1996 where E-Government is one of the seven flagships under this project; and under the E-Government flagship are seven projects said to be the core of E-Government.




The seven projects are as follows:

• Electronic Services Delivery (E-Services)
• Generic Office Environment (GOE)
• Electronic Procument (EP)
• Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
• Project Monitoring System (PMS)
• Electronic Labor Exchange (ELX)
• E-Syariah

The application of E-Government stems from the seven project stated above. Some further application of E-Government are

• myGovernment - the official government website that disseminates the most up-to-date information released by the government
• e-Compalaint, Ministry of Works Malaysia - the site to lodge any complaints on the projects carried out by the Ministry of Works
• eKL - the government tool to improve the service delivery system of government agencies in Klang Valley
• MySMS - the government official SMS portal that enables the public to obtain government services through one SMS number 15888

Apart from the implementation of E-Government, the governemtns needs to have strategies to halp the users or potiential users feel more comfortable when using E-Government. As such the government needs to beef up the security of this system. Malaysians are very sceptical in regards to online transaction (hack.. my neighbours thinks its a sham) so the government needs to convince the users that the websites are safe and their computers won't blow up when they use them.

The reliability of this system needs improvement as well. The government related websites tend to be down (inoperative) sometimes and i feel that this should not happen as it represents the government. It will give the government a very bad impresion of inefficiency and unreliability.

The awareness of the existance of E-Government must be spread as only a handfull of people knows about it. Many do not know that they can do their tax filing online or pay their summons online. This information could be spread through the media (television especially as TV1, TV2 and TV3 are owned by the government).




Related Links

• http://www.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm
• http://www.mscmalaysia.my/article/12073046901815/12082915639335
• http://www.lawyerment.com/guide/gov/