Apparently, Indonesia is still steps behind in implementing the e-government technology within its governance system that it’s even unable to keep up with other fellow Southeast Asian countries. According to E-Government Survey 2014 by the UN, Indonesia is ranked 106th out of 193 countries. Given the fact, the establishment of partnership of e-government enhancement between Indonesia and South Korea became the main topic of the E-Government Partnership Forum Workshop which was held by both governments last Thursday.
The partnership is processed in accordance to both countries’ MoU on e-government and bureaucracy reformation last year. In yesterday’s Workshop, which held the “Smarter Strategy for Better Government “ as its theme, the Minister of Civil Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucracy Reformation (CAE-BR) Yuddy Chrisnandi, as being cited from CAE-BR’s official page, admitted that the IT system has yet been integrated all this time. This resulted on the huge expenses of IT-related matters the government had to spend last year, which reached $1,2 billion (around Rp 14 trillion).
As Antara had it, Yuddy revealed, “South Korea is proven to have excellent track record in implementing IT technology within its governance system.”
And he spoke the truth. In 2010, 2012, and 2014 South Korea was always ranked first as the best country to implement e-government and online participation by the UN’s E-Government Survey.
During the Workshop, the delegation of South Korea introduced three projects, which are: Government Business Process System (BPS), Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), and Health and Prosperity Information System (Prosperity Card). All those three are seen to fit the policies of the newly elected Joko Widodo’s cabinet perfectly.
In line with Chrisnandi, the Ambassador of South Korea for Indonesia Cho Tai-young voiced his suppport to the partnership. “The concept of e-government is in line with President Joko Widodo’s agenda, which is to create more efficient and transparent governance system,” he stated during the forum.
Furthermore, Chrisnandi expects to reduce government’s expenses by the establishment of this partnership. This is due to the fact that Indonesia spends way higher than Singapore ($800 million) or England ($518 million).
As for the e-government implementation, Indonesia is going to focus on six areas, which are government cyber security, government internet exchange, government bus service, integrated government data center, business permit system, and citizen services system. The partnership is expected to be completed by 2019.
[Illustration: Shutterstock]