Sarawak Tribune; September 21, 2005)

KUCHING: The State government plans to achieve a full electronic government (EG) by 2008, said State Secretary Datuk Amar Haji Abdul Aziz bin Dato Haji Husain yesterday. "We hope to be able to deliver all our major services on line by 2008. This covers not just services to the customers but also transactions with our suppliers as a means to deliver quality ser-vices anytime, anywhere," said Aziz at the launching of the ICT Week at a hotel here.

He said, at present the ser-vices provided by the government were already quite, comprehensive, for instance electronic bill presentation and payment (EBPP) system, online call centre, online job advertise-ment and job applications system, online scholarship and payment system, online library system and online systems for the local authorities.

"These are just some of our online applications. More online systems will be developed soon on our quest for EG status by 2008, "he said.

He said to further enhance the service delivery of the government, he had instructed the ICT Unit to conduct a study to assess the possibility of implementing a universal service counter for government agencies.

"At this stage, we realise that there will be major non-technical or non-technological issues that need to be resolved to be successfully implement the universal service counter project."

"Among them are legal and administrative issues concerning the proper and strict appointment and assignment of roles and responsibilities of the different government agencies and the staff," he said.

However, he pointed out that providing the online services would meet snag if the rural-urban digital divide was not resolved in the long run.

"But this should not prove to be a major setback to our rural populace if we can provide them the physical equivalent of a one-stop online service delivery," he said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister and chairman of the State IT & Resource Council (SITRC), Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chain said the theme "Get IT" was adapted to emphasize the importance of IT in the wired world today.

"As part of this week-long event, we have lined up two conferences, one seminar, the government Website Awards Night and an ICT Expo," said Dr Chan.

He said the first conference with the theme "K-Society in Sarawak: Making IT Happen" will be for the general public especially those from the business community and the second conference will focus on "K-Public Service: Leading the way for Sarawak k-Society" which will be attended by State Public Services Officers, ICT Officers and Webmasters of the
respective agencies.

"We are also organising the iRemote Sensing Data Application Awareness seminar for political leaders and heads of government departments," he added. He disclosed that 51 exhibitors were taking part in this year's ICT Expo compared to 40 in 2003.