By Winston Way
(Sarawak Tribune; August 17, 2005)

KUCHING: The Sarawak State government is planning to put all their bills online by 2006, State Secretary Datuk Amar Haji Abdul Aziz Dato Haji Husain said. "To achieve this, commitment from various state government agencies, statutory bodies and local authorities are needed, he said when launching PaybBillsMalaysia.com with Bumiputra Commerce Bank Channel-e.com.my at the Wisma Bapa Malaysia yesterday."Those who have yet to put their bills online, are required to do so as soon as possible," he added.

Sarawak is among the first government in the country to recognise the use of information and communications technology (ICT) as a critical tool in the public administration of, for and by the State Civil Service.

"Over the past 12 years, under a broad-based and sustained IT programme, the use of ICT in the state's civil service has grown to be among the best in the country' he explained.

SAINS (Sarawak Information Systems Sdn. Bhd.), an in-house IT implementation arm, was established in 1992 to carry out IT programmes, and four years later, the state leadership saw the importance of IT and set up SNT (SiliconNet Technologies Sdn. Bhd.) to take advantage of the new technology.

"Today, we see the results and SNT has been able to do well and gain the necessary skills in bring services of agencies and cor-porations to their customers through Internet in a very cost effective manner," Aziz, who is also SAINS deputy chairman said.

Various e-applications have also been developed for the public's convenience, such as e-recruitment, e-local authority, e-booking, e-scholarship, as well as deploying e-commerce solutions to the public and businesses.

"The convergence of these initiatives produces our e-government (EG) strategy, which connects the government to our citizens, allowing transactions with govern-ment agencies," he said.

EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment) service is one of the major components in helping the government to achieve full EG status under the Ninth Malaysian Plan, offering a virtual collection counter, accessible anytime, anywhere via the Internet.

The service was launched in April 2000, and now there are more than 30 Biller Corporations and more than 40 types of bills, including monthly utility bills and e-commerce transactions.

"The service will continue to grow to include all forms of bills for the convenience of consumers, and the government is making efforts to ensure this will happen as early as possible,"Aziz said.

He was also happy to see Bumiputra Commerce Bank (BCB), with its large consumer base, taking the interest in joining the EBPP, and hoped with the collaboration, the state government's objective of EBPP to the people will be further realised, Sulaiman Tahir, the Head of Retail Banking BCB, said that the bank is committed in its quest to become the choice bank for business and government, and as such, collaboration with the relevant parties like the Sarawak government to promote ICT in improving the quality of live of the people, which is high in the bank's agenda,

Channel-e is BCB's consumer banking portal that enables customers to perform online transactions in a convenient and hassle-free manner.

"Since its launch in December 2001, we have seen a steady response from customers, having more than 70,000 active users with RM40 million worth in transactions monthly," Sulaiman said.

PaybillsMalaysia.com now includes BCB channel-e.com.my into the EBPP hosting service, being launched in 2000 by SNT, a wholly owned internet business arm of SAINS.

Through the service, consumers in Sarawak now can pay their bills via BCB channel-e.com.my with billers including Kuching Water Board (KWB), Sarawak Electricity Corporation (SESCo), Sibu Water Board (SWB), among others. At the moment, there are about 57,000 registered user of PayBills Malaysia all over the state.

Also present were Teo Tien Hiong, managing director of SNT, and also the company's general manager, Teo Loon Tong.