E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

Introduction

Firstly, the term E-Government is referring to the use of IT and e-commerce to provide access to government information and delivery of public services to citizens and business partners. It is an efficient and effective way of conducting government business transaction with citizens and businesses and within government themselves.

Implementation

. For an overview, the implementation of E-Government started since the establishment of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by the Malaysian government and it was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. The status of E-Government implementation in Malaysia so far has been improved tremendously and has achieved a greater height. E-Government is one of the seven flagship applications introduced in MSC. Under the E-Government flagship, seven main projects of the E-Government applications are as follows:

• Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

  

• Human Resource Management Information Systems (HRMIS)
• Generic Office Environment (GOE)
• Electronic Procurement (EP)
• Electronic Services (E-Services)
• Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
• E-Syariah

Up-to-date, its inplementation is focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens. In the survey, Malaysia's ranking is 25th out of 32 countries in terms of E-Government usage growth in year 2007.

Citizen’s adoption strategies

Usually, the advancement in technologie

s is forcing governments to be particularly thoughtful to time. In order to make right decision and avoid falling behind, governments must identify and resolve the different issues that have arisen from the transaction period during which traditional and E-Government co-exist. Government should guide and manage the conversion of government into e-government rather than just focusing on introduction of ICTs. Next, the use of ICT to gather the participation of citizens and businesses in public decision must be progress at the same time.

At the same time, capability of the application is also one of the citizens’ considerations to adopt the E-Government. Thus, in order to make sure that the citizens are adopting or accepting the implementation of E-Government, the strategies that the government should carry out in order for them to adopt the implementation of E-government are to increase the citizens’ confidence towards the capability of E-Government by the following strategies:

• Simplifying the navigation of and search for information and online services through the provision of a single entry point.
• Providing a single shared platform for the delivery of government-originating information and news.
• Providing added convenience to the public in the usage of government services

  

  by facilitating the downloading of forms and usage information.
• Educating and informing the public on the process of using the various services offered by government agencues.
• Providing a single shared platform for the public and government agencies to communicate via community based services.
• Providing a platform for interactive and/or transactional government online services to be delivered to the public in a convenient and easy-to-use manner.

However, the upmost important factor that the government should consider is the security issues of citizens’ personal information when they are using the E-Government applications.

Some useful link for references:

· http://www.intanbk.intan.my/psimr/articles/Article1%20-%20Full.pdf

· http://www.american.edu/initeb/ym6974a/egovernment.htm#E-Government

· http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/10/nation/19436585&sec=nation

· http://www.mait.com/admin/enews_images/MAIT%20Country%20Intelligence%20eNews96_37.pdf

Some useful link for general knowledge:

· http://www.gov.my

· http://www.mscmalaysia.my