PUTRAJAYA: The government targets 90 per cent of all its services to be online by 2015, according to the new Chief Secretary to the Government, Datuk Seri Dr Ali Hamsa.
He said the target was crucial for the government agencies to move towards a smart government to promote innovation and creativity in public service delivery.
In reaching the target, Ali said a case study of sharing the One-Stop Centre (OSC) undertaken by the Housing and Local Government Ministry through the local authorities throughout Malaysia recently, showed improved delivery performance of government services.
“Until March 2012, a total of 1,957 project development applications were received through the system,” he said when delivering a keynote address at the National Digital Conference 2012, here, today.
He believed that through the initiative, various processes involved in handling applications could be made simultaneously and the processing time reduced to about four to six months from one to two years previously.
“Approvals for building plans and planning permission increased from 72 per cent to 90 per cent while the performance of the OSCs in the states has also shown marked improvement.
“Recently, average applications through the OSCs also increased from 84.7 per cent to 92.5 per cent.
“Up to now, 35 per cent of government services are available online through the myGovernment portal since the technology has infused into all aspects of service delivery and internal government operations,” he said.
These include services that allow pensioners and senior citizens to access their various benefits online and people to make quit rent payments, renewal of licences, permits and summons payments via a single portal.
Ali noted that the United Nations e-Government Survey 2012 that assessed the technical features of national websites as well as e-government policies and strategies applied by specific sectors had ranked Malaysia 40th among its 193 member countries.
“Therefore, we need to move faster and should lead even more strategic and modern technologies such as cloud computing, tablets and social media in improving our delivery.
“We also need to leverage technology’s promise to continuously improve government service delivery and accelerate the digital transformation momentum to be the global leader in e-government development,” he said.
Ali urged the public and private sectors to work together to further improve the technological readiness of the country such as enhancing Internet penetration rate and bandwidth capacity.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri G. Palanivel opened the two-day conference. –Bernama