(Borneo Post; September 21, 2005)

KUCHING: Sarawakians could one day be able to visit any of the service counters of any state agency and be able to get any service that the State government provides. This is the vision of State Secretary Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Husain and he has instructed the ICT Unit of the Chief Minister's Department to conduct a study on the feasibility of a universal service counter for government agencies.

"With universal service counters, it would mean that the State public service will truly have a single and common interface for the public. We believe that this dream is possible with the use of ICT," he said. Aziz disclosed this plan at the opening of the Sarawak ICT Week 2005 here yesterday.

He is the organising chairman of the ICT Week, which is themed 'Get IT' and is held in conjunction with the Malaysia ICT Month.He said that at this stage, there would be major non-technical or non-technology issues that had to be resolved to successfully implement the universal service counter project.

Among them, he said, were legal and administrative issues concerning the proper and strict appointment and assignment of roles and responsibilities of the different government agencies and their staff. Nevertheless, Aziz believed that a universal service counter was an important concept in the State's electronic government vision.

"Not everybody in the State will have Internet access or will have the necessary literacy to undertake online access. This is especially true to the rural population but this should not prove to be a major drawback to these people if we can provide them the physical equivalent of a one-stop online service delivery.

"Therefore, we have not forgotten about people who do not have or who cannot have online access. Our electronic government vision is an inclusive vision that tries to be fair and equitable to all sectors of the society," he said.

Earlier, Aziz said that the State government hoped to be able to deliver all major services online in line with its electronic government vision. He said this covered not just services to the consumers but also transactions with suppliers. As an interim target, he said he had asked that all bills issued and all payments received by the State agencies be made available online by the end of 2007. The State government has many online applications as a means to deliver quality service anytime and anywhere.

Among them are the electronic bill presentment and payment system, online call centre, online job advertisement and job application system, online scholarship and payment system, online library system and online systems for the local authorities.