(Borneo Post; September 24, 2005)

KUCHING: Next year's public service website competition will only be open to in-house websites to further hone and improve the skills and creative talents of internal webmasters. State Secretary Datuk Amar Haji Abdul Aziz Husain said this decision was taken due to the vast improvement in the quality of in-house websites this year.

"I am pleased to note that we have been seeing significant improvements in the quality of our government websites from year to year," he said at the 2005 Public Services Websites Awards presentation here on Thursday. He said 104 agencies took part in this year's competition, an addition of seven over last year's entries. The competition is divided into two categories: in-house for agencies' webmasters to create their websites and outsource where agencies will engage external help to create their websites.

Aziz said the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Unit in the Chief Minister's Department would like all government departments and agencies to pay serious attention in maintaining their websites. He said website development and management was essential to support the government's move towards K-society through e-Government.

Government websites played a critical role in delivering the government's promise of 'quality service, delivery anytime, anywhere, which was the key principle behind e-Government initiatives, he pointed out.

"Our websites are important tools for us to reach our customers and we cannot compromise the quality of our websites. Websites are our means to extend our services beyond geographical boundaries and across divisions in gender, income level, education level and others," he said.

He also highlighted the need to constantly update information on government websites which should publish useful information such as month-to-month updates on the progress of all development projects instead of those that had been completed.'

This, he said would create a sense of anticipation among the people on the projects and help them plan then-activities too. He reminded webmasters to be careful on the information they published as this could present positive as well as negative image of the state because once in cyberspace, it would be difficult to retract.

However, he stressed that being careful meant publishing accurate, up-to-date information and not being fearful, resulting in hiding information. Aziz also noticed most of the statutory bodies and government linked companies were unwilling to publish financial information.

He believed that being open and transparent would dispel unfounded rumours which could spoil the government's image.

Meanwhile, Kristofferson Anthony from the Mukah Resident's office was named the webmaster of the year. The first runner-up was Nyelang Galungan for Project Implementation and Monitoring Unit's website and Mustapha Hashim from Padawan Municipal Council's website, second runner-up.

For ministries and government offices in-house category, Mukah Resident's Office took the first place while Kapit Resident's office won first place in the outsource category.

For local authorities, Padawan Municipal Council came in first place for the in-house category while Kuching City South Council won first place in the outsource category.

For statutory bodies and government linked companies, Sesco Berhad won first place in the in-house category whereas Natural Resource and Environment Board won first place in the outsource category.