(Borneo Post; September 22, 2005)

KUCHING: Heads of government departments must acquire the know-how of e-Government applications and systems to deliver value-added services. State Secretary Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain who gave this advice felt that those unfamiliar with computers and the latest systems should take up special training to keep abreast of information and communication
technology (ICT).

He added that they had to give full cooperation to the State ICT Unit or Sarawak Information Systems Sdn Bhd (Sains) in nurturing their computer skills to overcome bureaucratic inefficiency. "We must work and collaborate closely to advance our ICT knowledge to overcome bureaucratic processes. There is still a lot that needs to be improved," he said when launching the e-book services of State Library in conjunction with the State Public Service ICT Conference at a leading hotel here yesterday.

Pointing out that less than five percent of the prevailing systems was being utilised, Aziz said heads of department ought to take the initiative to start learning so that the others followed their pace. "We have developed more than 100 applications besides extending ICT facilities to all government departments. By this year-end, we would have connected all of them, down to the sub-districts to the Sarawak Net.
"We have been regularly providing free ICT training to all those in the public sector. We would now like to see all civil servants fully use our ICT facilities and system," he said.

He asserted that ICT provided the technical foundation of a knowledge society (k-society) as it affected everyone in terms of social interactions, education and learning, business development besides helping to create innovative methods to advance the society.

Chief Information officers (CIOs), ICT Security Officers (ICTSOs) and Webmasters played a pivotal role in achieving the target of a full-pledged e-Government by 2008, he said. "It is imperative that the public sector meets this target because we lead the way for the Sarawak's k-society and e-Government is one of the key pillars.

"The role of CIOs, ICTSOs and Webmasters in ensuring the effectiveness of ICT use and investment in the public service has become more crucial as our clientele become more sophisticated in their knowledge and more demanding in their needs," he explained. He stressed that ICT could enhance the quality of civil service through providing added-values such as wider options and greater accessibility at clientele's convenience without compromising the services.

Citing the e-book services of State Library as example, he said it offered tremendous cost savings in library management and operations besides providing wide choice of books to customers. He hoped that the conference would enable participants to acquire new knowledge and think of new ways on how they could ensure the judicious use of ICT for the e-Government
initiatives.

Meanwhile, with the e-book services, State Library users will be able to access the system at any hour of any day. The library recently purchased 200 e-book titles from Netlibrary, which enables users to access more than 90,000 e-book titles from over 400 publishers. It pledges that more new e-book titles will be added to the collection monthly.

To access e-book services, the public must register as a member of State Library@LibraryNet and they must have Internet connection. For more details on the service, contact State Library Dayangku Hadzimah at 082-442000 (277).