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KOREA'S MODEL OF
E-GOVERNMENT EXCELLENCE
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South African government officials must sacrifice
their own self interests and establish a capable body for
e-government in South Africa to succeed.
 Addressing
delegates at one of the closing breakout sessions at SITA
GovTech 2009, Cheung Moon Cho, South Africa/Korea ICT
Cooperation Centre at the Department of Education, who's
responsible for capability building at government level, had
some stern advice, based on Korea's journey to e-government.
According to Moon Cho, Korea has a broadband penetration rate of
approximately 90 percent, and is ranked 6th on the UN
e-Governance Readiness Index, largely because of its proactive
approach to proliferating Internet access and usage in the
country. This is done by encouraging service providers to sell
on broadband access as part of return payment for licensing fees
by the incumbent provider.
It all started in 1998 when Korea launched a Comprehensive
National IT Education Plan, which targeted 25 million of its
population to increase digital literacy. The plan was expanded
in 2000 to provide access to a further 10 million people to
increase digital literacy to an intermediate level, and in 2002
provided education to cultivate 5 million 'e-KOREANS' to create
information prosumers, using IT in their work and personal
lives.
Moon Cho said the ministries worked together to achieve the
national goal of building a nation with people of high capacity
for information utilisation and all ministries participated and
co-operated with each other, governed by a single entity. They
made full use of training facilities through cooperation between
public and private educational institutions and by developing
curriculums using various broadcasting and new media.
During 1997, Korea was already focusing on its own
infrastructure development, digitising government business
processes and establishing an e-government infrastructure, as
well as identifying key initiatives that would serve as the
backbone of government. These included improving the quality of
public service delivery, enhancing the business environment
through procurement, infrastructure document management and
systems that would allow for transparency through government.
During the period 2003–2007, the Korean government successfully
embarked on a strategy to innovate service delivery, information
resource management and reforming the government legal system.
Currently, Moon Cho said, Korea is at a stage of advanced
internal administrative procedures and expansion of an
integrated service, and while still only transactional, it's on
the brink of reaching a level of seamless online service
delivery provided by all ministries and agencies, which he said
is essentially a fully-converged public service.
Moon Cho added that the success factors up until now included
strong leadership from the President, with strategic and
sustainable plans for 20 years, change management, as well as
aligned e-government projects with performance evaluation.
Additionally, to promote IT governance, an information promotion
committee chaired by the prime minister was formed, which guides
administrative branches and technical assistance from
professional agencies to ensure that revision of laws and
regulations are in line with government reform.
According to Moon Cho, Korea has a mandate that its
customer-oriented e-government services must be based on
citizens' needs and closely relate to everyday life, which
should be tied back to performance-based programme management,
with clear goals and objectives, and a designated officer in
charge of project performance.
Currently, Moon Cho noted, while there is great demand for
effective and efficient government services in South Africa, and
rising awareness of what opportunities it could bring, there is
a lack of strong leadership in implementing e-government,
especially in the public sector. Corruption, Moon Cho said, is
rife when implementing these projects.
There is a strong demand from the international community at
large to reform the way in which the South African government
delivers its services to citizens; however, the economic
recession has had a negative impact on budgets allocated for
e-government projects to get off the ground.
Moon Cho suggested that there should be a re-alignment of the
way in which e-government is implemented in South Africa. He
said government needs a holistic approach, adding that
e-government is not an IT project in itself; rather it is part
of restructuring and innovation of government's services.
He explained that there needs to be co-ordination from one
single competent authority that governs the move to
e-government, because as it stands, fragmented between SITA, the
Department of Public Service and Administration and the
Department of Communications, responsibilities seem to me
muddled, and intentions not clear.
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