[Pakistan] IT task force to provide guidelines for e-government

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

IT task force to provide guidelines for e-government 


By Our Correspondent 

ISLAMABAD, March 5: The government has set up a task force to prepare 
necessary input and guidelines for the consultants preparing plans 
for electronic-government (e-govt), a government official said on 
Monday. 

Alvi Abdul Raheem, who has been appointed chairman of the Information 
Technology Task Force, told Dawn that the project would be completed 
in two years' time and another four years would be required to 
streamline the project and remove faults. 

In an interview with Dawn, Mr Raheem said that the entire project 
would be completed in different phases under which all government 
departments would be computerized. Giving details about the 
implementation methodology of the plan, he said every 
ministry/division had been requested to appoint a four-member team of 
resource persons who were familiar with the working of concerned 
division. 

"These resource officers would help re-engineering of existing office 
procedure and be responsible for bringing changes in the management 
in their respective departments." 

Mr Raheem said an e-government directorate was also being set up in 
the Information Technology Commission Secretariat to implement 
different projects, which would be out-sourced due to lack of in-
house professional expertise. He said a permanent Information 
Technology consulting firm would be engaged for this purpose. 

He said the e-government projects would not cover all the government 
departments initially but with the passage of time all government 
ministries, divisions and departments would be covered. 

Answering a question, he said the project would improve services of 
government departments for citizens by providing the services to the 
people at their doorsteps, bringing transparency in government 
departments, replacing the lengthy procedures, improving efficiency 
and quality of service and creating domestic market for Information 
Technology industry by out-sourcing different e-government projects, 
etc. 

He said some international agencies like UN and others who were eager 
to see good governance in the country and had assured Pakistan 
monetary assistance for this programme. "The project of e-government 
will obviously pave way for good governance in the country." 

Mr Raheem said there was a general impression that e-government meant 
paperless government but in fact "no government can work by 
discarding paperwork". "E-government is aimed at reducing paperwork," 
he said. "Paperwork will be confined to sensitive and basic policy 
matters and the routine work would be digitized." 

Talking about the implementation of e-government plan, the chairman 
of the Information Technology Task Force said a modular 
implementation strategy would be adopted. 

Answering a question, he said the entire e-government project would 
be divided into broad sectors so that modules were selected from each 
category for implementation in the any financial year. 

He said for this purpose the following categorisation would be done: 
Applications which can be adopted by almost every government agency 
including electronic communication and document management, human 
resources, finance and budgeting, procurement, attendance to 
letters/complaints received from public; networking of computer 
facilities; selection of government ministries/departments for agency 
specific automation; facilitating the payment of utility bills; at 
the provincial and local level there is a large number of government 
agencies which were performing similar functions within their 
specific jurisdiction. 

Some such agencies, operating on a small scale in their jurisdiction 
may be selected for automation. The software applications developed 
for this purpose can be replicated subsequently; computer literacy 
for government employees is another area which needs attention. In 
addition to the computer literacy programmes already in progress at 
PCB, the focus would on Information Technology literacy of all 
probationary government officers who will perform the core of 
managers in the next decade. 


http://www.dawn.com/2001/03/06/nat5.htm