“A Government-Connected People, A People-Connected Government”-a message from managing director, Microsoft Malsysia.

Do you all know that what is the meaning of E-Government?
E-Government is an E-commerce model in which a government entity buys or provides goods, services, or information to businesses or individual citizens.

For example, Malaysia government’s main portal is http://www.malaysia.gov.my/EN/Pages/default.aspx.

Goals of E-Government...

**Assist strengthening government’s drive toward effective governance.

**Enhance access to and delivery of government services to benefit of citizens.

Malaysia E-Government successful applications...

• Adoption of Government Open Source Projects
• E-Syariah
• Voter information
• E-Procurement
• Employment opportunities
• Details for government tenders
• Online renewal of driving licenses
• SMS alert on E-government services
• Electronic filing (E-filing) of income tax forms
• Government’s drive for E-government services
• Electronic Labour Exchange has matched 75,000 potential employees with employers since 2005.

Malaysia E-Government implementations so far...
The implementation of E-government requires strong leadership and vision. It also requires a comprehensive strategy that is not only benchmarked on global best practices, but also sensitive to existing political realities and economic conditions.

Advantages of E-Government...

**Reduce costs: E-Government allows harvesting of data from different systems and different areas.

**Good quality: E-Government increases the quality of feedback to managers and policy makers.

**Well management: E-Government reinforces traditional bureaucratic structures, cultures, and links from administration to citizens and politics.

Problems faced in E-Government implementation in Malaysia...

**Language barriers: Some of the government websites use only Bahasa Malaysia version. So, government should design the multi language websites to citizens.

**Take slow action: Some complaints have not been responded quickly due to without any action from concerned specific authorities.

**IT infrastructure: Shortage of reliable networks and communication. It is very hard to redesign the websites due to the high complexity in understanding the process and systems.

**Operational costs: The cost of IT professionals and consultancies is high in developing countries.

Citizen’s adoption strategies...

In Malaysia, E-Government adoption requires citizens to show their high levels of satisfaction and security with the online services provided by the government.

The E-Government websites should provide:

**Best services: The problem solving is effective and efficient enough to reply to citizens such as E-complaint portal.

**Convenience: Save time to make the payment such as renew driving license online.

**Confidentiality: The information of citizens is protected.

**Cost saving: The E-transaction cut-off paper work and makes it easy to use.

**Friendly user websites: The websites is provided by multi language version.


In conclusion, E-government in Malaysia have improved our understanding of what works and what does not, what practices are transferable, and under what conditions.

~For more information, please refer to following websites

• Internal users' self-assessment of Malaysia's E-Government
• E-Government in Malaysia
• An example of implementation of E-Procurement

INFORMATION SHARING
Malaysia was ranked 157 out of 198 countries in 2005. In recent, the ranking leapfrogs to top 11!!! This proved that Malaysian government put efforts in promoting their E-Government services.

E-GOVERNMENT DATA EXCHANGE



Reference: http://www.egov-coe.com/