Illustration: sxc.hu/Svilen Milev
BUT FASTER BROADBAND NEEDED
BRUNEI'S e-government initiatives received high praise from Singaporean e-Government consultancy and infrastructure solutions provider, Ecquaria, during the last day of TechXpo 2010, but the Sultanate needs to improve its broadband infrastructure to ensure the successful implementation of the system.
Wong Wei Wei, Marketing Manager of Ecquaria, said that as a first time participant in TechXpo 2010, their aim was to simply gain more exposure to the Brunei market and to "give a little bit of an introduction to the work that we do with the Ministry of Communications in Brunei".
Their partnership with the ministry started off with work on an integrated service portal she said, "which is very similar to a centralised e-government infrastructure".
Asked if this was in line with what the Brunei government wanted to achieve with its e-government push, Wei Wei confirmed saying, "Yes, I think the Ministry of Communications is taking the initiative to connect all the different ministries, agencies and departments through a centralised infrastructure which (can) help the different ministries and departments with ease of business. So I think this is very much in tune with (what) they want to do in enabling a more sophisticated and excellent communications objective."
She also highlighted the significance of using information and communications technologies to empower the local government in going the e-government route.
Wei Wei praised the e-government projects so far, saying, "I think it's an excellent start so far, particularly with the beginning phase with the Land Transport Department (LTD). From what I understand, the ratio is almost every three persons equals to one vehicle, so the car ownership is very high."
This creates a substantial amount of critical mass for Brunei to begin with, she said, but also noted that e-government initiatives would be a more relevant realisation of meeting their public service needs such as renewal of licenses and booking car inspections.
"I think for the Land Transport Department to start off with this, which is really under the initiative of the Ministry of Communications, this is very excellent," she added.
Ecquaria recently assisted the LTD in making the move to an e-government platform, although no specific details were able to be revealed.
Asked if there were any elements of Singapore's e-government process that can be applied by Brunei, Wei Wei said Singapore has always been willing to share their knowledge and experiences, adding, "I think in every government, there is always a progression, a journey towards electronising the government to public interface. "
She explained, "Several governments have also gone through this computerisation mode and it all started with different phases like just publishing static information, withdrawing transaction information, and then slowly it evolved to provide a platform for the businesses to connect to the government."
In terms of increased ease of business, Wei Wei said that in Brunei's case, the country is going through the initial phase where it needs to widen its public education programme to "let (the public) know how e-government can actually help to enhance and help to reduce the manual workload to some of these government officers through the electronisation of some of these services".
The system can also help to improve internal operational efficiency and bring about convenience she added.
"I think the main key is (that) it brings about convenience for the citizens and I think in Brunei, the (number of) Internet users is increasing year on year. Penetration is really high, about eighty odd per cent. It's really very high. In conjunction with the rolling out of more e-government (features), I hope and I think that it will definitely benefit with more citizens coming on board to use e-services," she said.
She suggested that a key first step would be to improve the broadband facilities and infrastructure in the country and increase the speed and accessibility.
Ecquaria uses an open process driven infrastructure, Wei Wei said, adding that it is basically a middleman vendor based on 'K2EE' technology. "(This) means that many of the different vendors, they come onto this platform and build the ease of business, but fundamentally adhering to the central infrastructure of the design that we help (create) and deploy," she said.
This in turn, helps to build up an ecosystem of different users or citizens, added Wei Wei, be it the FI integrated system which is the government vendor where they come in to build applications for ease of business.
"So what we're trying to say here is that it's not really a closed infrastructure (but is) an open technology where they can enable common sharing of common applications for ease of business such as registration, payment and also the sharing of data streams amongst the different agencies across the government," she said.
courtesy of--The Brunei Times
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