Citizens go online

Joan McCalla, who works for Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group, was here last week to help the Thai government expand electronic services for citizens.

A 27-year veteran of the government of the Canadian province of Ontario, McCalla was its chief corporate strategist responsible for e-government services prior to joining the US firm in 2006.

In past decades, Canada has been frequently ranked among the world's leaders in e-government services, which are aimed at boosting efficiency, effectiveness and the quality of service delivery. "Information and communications technology or ICT can change the way government works for the public," says the ex-bureaucrat.

Generally speaking, ICT for government services has four stages starting with the provision of information to citizens, and then the provision of some government services electronically such as the issuing of birth certificates or renewals of car licence plates online.

The next two stages are the integration of e-government services across agencies, government levels and platforms, and, finally, the transformation of overall government services.

In the case of Thailand, the ICT Ministry has embarked on the second stage of this process by providing some electronic services to citizens as well as businesses.

E-revenue and e-customs are currently among the most popular of the electronic government services offered in Thailand.

The Transport Ministry has also started a drive-through service for renewing car licence plates.

In addition, the ministry is encouraging government agencies to introduce more electronic services, with eight being planned to better serve the public.

For example, the education and labour ministries will launch an e-job search service to help new graduates get employment, while the Public Health Ministry will introduce a new website that will allow students to do self-checks on their health.

Electronic services for business registration, tourism information and crime reporting are also under development.

McCalla believes that mobile e-government services will become widespread, while more of the government's workforce will be freed from routine work so that they can focus on more difficult tasks.

E-government will also mean less paper being used and more personalised services. For instance, the government could create a personal website for every taxpayer so that they could do all of their government-related transactions anywhere anytime.

Modern governments also view citizens as clients, so they will expect public collaboration, via feedback from them for example, as a means to improve the quality of services offered and their efficiency and effectiveness.

Such a trend is emerging against the backdrop of increasingly popular social-networking sites such as Facebook, and blogs.

In the near future, governments may also contemplate soliciting direct comments from citizens on proposed policies, she notes.

McCalla, who has also been helping the Indian government manage its IT investment for e-services, says the challenge there is to provide government services to as many as 700 million Indians living in about 600,000 villages throughout the vast nation.

India currently has a total population of 1.1 billion. While those in urban areas have some access to government services, the majority in villages do not have comparable access due to a lack of infrastructure, poverty and other factors.

As a result, the Indian government hopes ICT can help deliver most basic services electronically to all the people, even the poorest, as part of its "inclusiveness" policy.

A US$2-billion (Bt64 billion) investment programme is under way for construction of nationwide broadband infrastructure, data centres and community service centres.

For the average Indian, e-government services should also help reduce corruption, as it's not unusual for poor people to have to pay middlemen to get services.

McCalla notes that many government services in the Canadian province of Ontario are now available in many channels, including the "physical" counters at a government office, services via the phone, public computer kiosks and the Internet.

Several government ministries such as transport, public health and the environment also have consolidated their services, so as to provide common service counters at certain locations.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com

The Nation