E-Government: Saving costs and time for people and businesses

Update: 19-04-2019 | 15:38:22

Resolution 36a / NQCP of the Government on speeding up the implementation of e-Government in order to make transparency in activities of State agencies on the Internet, accelerate the reform of administrative procedures, shorten the solving process, save costs and time for people and businesses. By 2019, these requirements are realized by Department of Natural Resources and Environment, which has brought great benefits to people and businesses.

To apply 26 level-three public administrative services

By this time, Department of Natural Resources and Environment has applied level-three public services into 26 administrative procedures on provincial webpage; It is expected that by 2020, the number of public service levels 3 and 4 would be raised to 66 services.

The convenience that public administration service (e-Government) brings is that people and businesses can communicate with the government 24 hours a day, wherever there is an Internet connection. Specifically, with this service, transactions in the dossier solving process and service provision are carried out on the Internet; The payment of fees and receipt of results are carried out directly at the agency or service provider’s office. Thus, the people and organizations only have to come once to pay the fee (if any) and receive the results directly at OSS counters of the agency or unit. The application of online public services helps state agencies to reduce the work load pressure, solve problems faster, more conveniently and scientifically. Thereby, people enjoy favorable services, save costs as well as time to register, do administrative procedures, especially to avoid bureaucracy and troubles.

Staff of Information Technology Center, Department of Natural Resources and Environment processes information of people and businesses on the Internet.

Nguyen Thanh Trung, Deputy Director of Information Technology Center under Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said e-Government contributed greatly to changing working way from low-performing traditional manual tasks to applications of information technology, improving working efficiency. Thereby, the State saved human resources, reduced paper records, and increased work efficiency, contributing to the prevention of negativity and bureaucracy. However, the implementation of this service also reveals many difficulties, such as the capacity of civil servants is not equal, so the performance is sometimes, in some places, have not reached the desired progress. On the other hand, the people, businesses also have not boldly transformed, due to many reasons, including the causes of conditions and capabilities ... Meanwhile, to invest in setting up a public service, especially level-3 services are expensive, cost many time and efforts.

A survey of Department of Natural Resources and Environment shows that the main reason for people and businesses being not interested in public administrative services is concerns about inconvenience and unsafe information when using online public services, so most people still choose the traditional way, go directly to the authority’s offices to do administrative procedures. Another reason is that the propagation and dissemination of public service benefits is still limited...

To improve service quality

According to experts, in order to improve quality of public services in the coming time, the Government should soon issue legal documents related to electronic payment for online public services to ensure a reliable and secure environment for payment of service fees. Along with that, there should be a legal document for specific regulations on payment methods, such as payment by card: Credit cards can be used or payment card for services is mandatory...

In addition to the responsibility of self-securing the account and taking responsibility if loss occurs due to leakage of information from participants of online transactions, authorities need to add legal regulations on procedures, order of handling complaints, and transaction insurance policies. Cases of inaccurate or suspected, fraudulent behaviors or other breaches of information require regulations on account blockage, account access lock, suspension of service provision or filing of documents to the police or apply other preventive measures.

Experts also said that it is necessary to have legal provisions on liability exemption or commitment to overcome consequences of online public service management agencies in some cases such as hardware, software or network having trouble and operating incorrectly; Unforeseen situations such as power outages, fires, floods, theft, equipment failures, cyber attacks or during system maintenance... Another issue needs attention is to ensure the safety and confidentiality of personal information of online public services. Therefore, network security experts and online software developing companies need to choose the option to harmonize both of these factors but also need to take precautions with risks such as data theft, false results, modification of information, forgery.

Currently, most online public services, services in banks and securities of countries, such as the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, all use digital signature solutions for online transactions. In Vietnam, the Prime Minister approved the national digital information security development plan until 2020. Vietnam currently has only 11 online services at level 4. However, the application of digital signature into online public services is an inevitable trend in Vietnam, when the number of online public services at levels 3 and 4 is being developed more and more.

Reported by Duy Chi – Translated by Ngoc Huynh

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E-Government: Saving costs and time for people and businesses

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