Group 6: E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen's adoption stractegies

E-Government is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the activities of public sector organisations. In orther words, E-Government is a generic term for Web-based services from agencies of local, state and federal governments. Such Web sites provide a wide variety of services to the public and have been extremely helpful in reducing internal paperwork

During the tax season, it's that time of year that causes so much stress, such like piling deadlines on people who already have too many deadlines, and ending with the writing of a check to the government. It's not the greatest way to kick off springtime.

However, Electronic tax filing is the perfect example of a service that is best served through an e-government initiative that can combine the capabilities not only of a software developer, but also channel companies that understand what it means to serve both the government agency and its constituents.

Once implemented, citizens would file their taxes on the Web site. Any charges applied to the service would be used to offset the cost of the procurement.

In addition, E-Perolehan is an online procurement system that allows local entrepreneurs to register as suppliers for government offices. It also allows the government offices and agencies to procure products and services through a fast, web-based and electronic application.

E-Perolehan was established in 1999 as part of the MSC initiatives, and developed by Commerce Dot Com, a company partly owned by the government. E-Perolehan is the earliest major project undertaken by them.

The company admits to facing a lot of conflicts and challenges in the earlier days of project implementation, coupled with weak management and disintegrated coordination. At the same time, marketing a completely new and robust system which is not familiar to many presented a daunting challenge.

However, the inception of ePerolehan was timely as to follow the trend of increasingly popular and robust online or web-based procurement system that is being implemented by other corporations in the private sector. Also, it marks as another commitment by the government to have ‘all things electronic’ in the government daily operation. The system continues to undergo upgrades and design improvements as well as enhancement in the infrastructure.