VietNamNet Bridge – E-government has not only been existing on paper, but it has become true when local authorities have been making every effort to implement the model in their localities.

The e-government movement

In July 2012, Ninh Binh announced the plan to develop the province into a locality with high level of applying science and technology, especially information technology in administration works, a step towards the plan on building up the e-government in Ninh binh.

In August 2012, the Dien Bien provincial people’s committee approved the project on building the e-government by 2015 which said that in 2012-2015, the province would invest 94 billion dong to lay the foundation of the e-government model.

It is expected that by 2015, the province would build up the information technology infrastructure capable enough to run pilot systems, form up e-office models, e-community, e-business, e-school and e-hospitals.

Also in August 2012, the Hai Phong City Information Technology and Communication organized a workshop on building e-government in Hai Phong City, discussing the steps towards a solution of a smart and modern city.

At the workshop, Deputy Mayor Dan Duc Hiep emphasized that Hai Phong would basically have an e-government, e-citizen, e-business by 2015, and develop e-commerce.

Most recently, in November 2012, the Binh Duong province information technology and communication department organized a workshop on building e-government on computing cloud.

However, it is the central city of Da Nang which is considered the pioneer in implementing e-government in Vietnam.

The leaders of the city, which has the ambitious plan of making Da Nang the first e-city in Vietnam, has decided to budget four million dollars to install the smart operation system at the Information Technology – Communication Center.

Director of the Da Nang City’s Information Technology and Communication, Pham Kim Son compared the smart operation system as the “brain” of the e-government apparatus in Da Nang. It would store, process and provide data to all government agencies based on the cloud computing and would provide infrastructure services to enterprises.

It is expected that the smart operation machine would become operational by March 2013.

The path to e-government not rosy

There has been no fixed deadline about the implementation of e-governments across the country, or the model of the governments, localities have been going their ways.

This, experts have warned, would lead to the fact that the systems at different localities may not be compatible to each other, which means that the systems may not be able to communicate, because there have been no standards set up by state management agencies.

Local authorities have also admitted that they are facing a lot of difficulties in the e-government plan implementation.

One of the biggest problems for now is the lack of the manpower. State agencies have suffered a headache from the brain drain, when high qualified officers have left the agencies for enterprises. The 2010 White Book Vietnam showed that a newly graduated engineer earns only 1.1 million dong a month if he works at state agencies.

Meanwhile, his salary would be 2.5 times higher if he works in the hardware industry. A software programming engineer would have the fixed salary higher by 6.1 times. Besides, he would also receive extra income for his jobs.

There are also many other obstacles that hinder the implementation of e-governments in provinces and cities, including the lack of IT knowledge, the poor infrastructure, cumbersome administration apparatus and the lack of money.

Buu Dien