Mirroring Korean e-government

Introduction

As it stood at the third world-ranked based on UN E-Government Survey 2016 after for three consecutive terms in 2010, 2012 and 2014 levelled at the first, Korean E-Government could be one of an example to other countries in implementing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in their governance. As an Asian country, it’s such an awesome achievement to be one of those at the top of the world.

What have been going regarding Korean e-Government could be a lesson to other countries in developing the similar sector. Indonesia with a large of scopes to cope unavoidable needs this to make its governance better. This paper will discuss how Korean e-government could be mirrored by Indonesia in developing e-government. At the beginning, it will be briefly elaborated the Korean e-government followed by e-government in Indonesia. To get a clear description, asset/financial system of institution taken as an example of journey e-government in Indonesia to measure how far the implementation of Indonesian e-government. At last, mirroring e-government in Korea, proposed policy either to come up the findings of weakness in implementing e-government in Indonesia or to give suggestions to improving.

An Overview of  Digital Government and Quality of  Public Governance  in Korea

Marvelous achievement of Korea in e-government did not happen overnight said Prof Taejun (David) Lee, Ph.D. He revealed that it has been worked tirelessly for decades to build and improve its digital government systems and the result is most of the public services are delivered online. It makes Korean government is more transparent and competent in conducting its governance. The journey began at the mid of 1980s by building infrastructure (National Basic Information System) as an inception stage of e-governement followed by laying the groundwork for e-government in about mid 1990s to 2000. Carrying out 11 major tasks for e-government in only two years later and then continued by diffusion of e-government in 2003-2007 and convergence of e-government and 2008-present proves us that Korea has the fastest path to digital government.

Some factors making Korean e-government special are open culture embracing new technologies and services, world’s best internet and ICT environment, aggressive and continuous investment, establishment of sustainable mid-to-long-term plans, and strong government leadership and implementation system. In line with that, E-Government Development Index (EGDI) ranks countries by measuring their use of information and communications technologies to deliver public services. The Index captures three dimensions: scope and quality of online services, status of telecommunication infrastructure and existing human capacity. A key theme is how ICT and e-government can best contribute to the implementation of the SDGs. By those factors and categories measured, it’s undenibly that Korea deserverd to be one above others.

E-Government in Indonesia: General View

2016 UN E-Government Survey also ranks Indonesia at 116th of the 193 UN Member States which means there is significant disparity between Indonesia and Korea regarding this topic. To see how it is going in Indonesia, Safitry Jaya in her journal stated that the issuance of the Republic of Indonesia Presidential  Instruction No. 3 of 2003 on National Policy and  Strategy Development of e-Government followed by a Master Plan Development Guidelines for Developing e-Government Institutions of the Ministry of Communications and  Informatics, marked the beginning of the implementation of e-government in Indonesia. In her research she collected secondary data from the previous research and measured the maturity of Indonesian e-government. Implementation of e-government in Indonesia, viewed from integrated services of back office and front office, still far behind neighbour countries like Malaysia and Singapore which has integrated services and online passport, respectively. Less budget allocation and readiness of infrasructure became main obstacles to develop more on e-government implementation.

Similar view also stated by Head of Law, Communication, and Public Inforamtion Bureau, Ministry of Communications and Informatics in Forum Group Discussion (FGD) of E-Government Summit 2016, in Bidakara Hotel, Jakarta, Tuesday September 6, 2016 that implementation of e-government was still under expectation since less of experts at this sector, unintegrated data in each institution, less budget allocation, and there is no standardization in infrastructure.  

E-Government in Indonesia: practical view in asset/financial reporting system

At glance, I would like to give a short description related to application system used by each institution under central government as an example development of e-government in internal level. It’s generally known that after Indonesia declared its independent at Augut 17, 1945, Indonesia need a long time to have its first balance sheet in 2004. In addition, its asset values need to be revaluated in 2007-2008 to have fair values of its asset. We had SAAT (Fixed Asset Accounting System) in 2007 and SABMN (State Asset Accounting System) in 2008 which have been replaced with SIMAK BMN (State Asset Accounting and Management Information System) in late 2008-present as a tool to help us in reporting our asset. Characteristic of these applications are:

1. Local database system
2. The first two were built in Visual Foxpro where the data embedged in one folder while the latest was built in MySql locating data in program files. To collect the data and to compile the report of central government, every month asset data must be reconciled with the budget spending and reporting it every semester. With a large of scope to cope, 1.099 entities in Ministry of Finance and more than 20.000 entities of central government, these activities completely need much effort, time, cost, and error that still be a big problem
3. Off-line system
4. Information needed can’t be provided real time by the time we need to acces.
5. Unfriendly-used
6. You don’t need to learn how to use facebook, twitter and stuff, but to use this application it is needed a technical assistance to be fluent.

Mirroring Korean E-Government

It’s easier to learn from existing example rather than trying to figure out by ourselves. By learning the stages and strategies that Korean government has been through, We can mirroring theirs as elaborated below:

At the first stage building a national database looks as a starting point that must do. By having integrated database, it is easier to have inter database communication. We can reduce a much of fund used to cost routine activities such a data compilation and switch it into infrastructure development. Building infrastructure development need much fund but it's such completely the most important requirement to have a good e-government. Awareness of the leaders and serious courage to deal with global area demand to have fast and valid information to make efficient and effective governance, more focus on this should be done.

Second stage is about laying groundwork for e government by building foundation of high speed information and promoting the internet. On the other hand enacting framework act on information promotion. Those are combination to have our work on track. Vision and goals of government leaders in level of instruction of president is still high above and need to be lowered to make implementation becomes real.

The third stage comes with carrying 11 major tasks for e-government. It means that piloting of implementation in some sectors need to be done and by the it’s success, it can to be continued with others.

The fourth stage is carrying roadmap and laying groundwork for linking and integrating multiple governements and agencies. It is seen at the example above related to many applications built partially without any clear roadmap and after all those are difficult to integrated since they were built in different format and standard. Big challenge in developing integrated system is about silo mentality if each agency. It need a desire and firmness of the top leader to make a roadmap and keep it on track to all agencies. It’s also important to have standardization of e-government development as a a grip of each agency.

The last stage, convergence of e-government asserts on connected services which means that information, data and knowledge is transferred from government agencies through integrated applications. Coordination of each agency to work together and make the government more tranparent and competent is an obligation that should be conducted.

Conclusion

Although Indonesia still among the countries with the lowest level of e-government, I believe that Indonsia has potential to catch up the late. By learning from the expert, it will be good way out to find a right path to trail. We can mirroring Korean strategies and stages that they have been through with some adjustments to do.

References lists

TAEJUN (DAVID) LEE, Ph.D.  Associate Professor  KDI School of Public Policy and Management  Adjunct Fellow Researcher  KDI Economic Information and Education Center: An Overview of  Digital Government and Quality of  Public Governance  in Korea

DIMAS JAROT BAYU  HYPERLINK "http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2016/09/06/19074281/ini.penyebab.penerapan.e-government.di.indonesia.belum.maksimal" ini.penyebab.penerapan.e-government.di.indonesia.belum.maksimal: http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2016/09/06/19074281/

SAFITRI JAYA : Implementasi dan Perkembangan E-Government di Indonesia.

E-Government Development Index (EGDI), 2016