 | Issue: | Latin America IV 2001 |
| Article no.: | 5 | |
| Topic: | Building E-Governments in Latin America | |
| Author: | Grant Smith | |
| Title: | Senior Analyst and Programmes Manager | |
| Organisation: | Internet Strategies | |
| PDF size: | 24KB |
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Article abstract
Governments across Latin America now trumpet bold visions for e-government. Citizens will soon be able to digitally interact with their local governments using online, broadband, citizen service web sites. Vehicle registrations and title changes, as well as social security transactions, will be processed through effortless clicks. The bloated bureaucracies and unnecessarily complicated procedures conducted slowly and out of sight will become a thing of the past. Murky government tenders will suddenly be processed under the glaring light of e-procurement. A glowing digital trail of details about purchaser, vendor, price paid, and transaction execution will give taxpayers and watchdogs transparent inspection capabilities and new respect for how their governments carefully husband tax dollars.
Full Article
Lofty visions aside, challenges specific to Latin America’s past and present preclude fast or imported ‘packaged’ software solutions to achieve these visions. For example, although the US has been able to do without cumbersome legislation to recognise the validity of digital signatures on government web sites, Latin America’s legal systems require specific digital signature legislation. Binding digital signature laws in major countries such as Argentina have only just been passed. In other countries such as Colombia, certificate authorities, the new ‘digital notaries’ of the country, have yet to be formed even though legislation was enacted in 1999. The foundations for legally recognising electronic transactions are taking time to firm. Some governments see e-government as a ‘magic bullet’ and are racing ahead with projects with impossible milestones. Broader issues, such as increasing overall Internet penetration, must necessarily precede effective e-government. In this article, we analyse three major initiatives in Latin America to unveil the realities of implementing e-government visions. We examine Colombia’s government online project implementation and Brazil’s steps to improve Internet penetration as a precursor to e-government, and we make suggestions about Mexico’s funding approach. Lastly, we give some simple recommendations to empower and assist the region’s growing number of e-builders interested in harvesting the benefits as governments become e-governments. Colombia’s Lofty Deadlines The Colombian government’s Agenda de Conectividad (Connectivity Agenda) funds vastly improved Internet access to remote populations of Colombia, while increasing PC penetration and delivery of government services to citizens through web transactions Connectivity Agenda (CA) is a top government priority, with aggressive project deadlines and progress reporting required of government agencies. Yet how easy has it been for government entities to comply? Colombia’s Connectivity Agenda: The Leap to the Internet Colombia’s government, like most across Latin America, has not previously directed heavy investments towards improving universal access, much less delivering government services, through the Internet. Now, the Internet is at the core of the National Planning Department and Ministry of Communication’s vision to transform Colombia into a more technologically enabled country by the year 2010. CA has six broad objectives: 1. Access to information infrastructure-fortify the national telecom infrastructure while offering connectivity and computer power more affordably to end-users; 2. IT training and use of IT in education-foster ongoing IT education and IT awareness campaigns and raise the number of certified IT professionals; 3. IT in companies-raise the level of IT usage in Colombian companies; 4. Create a national IT industry-create a favourable investment climate; 5. Create a national content industry-support the publication of Colombian content; 6. Government online-improve the efficiency and transparency of government procurement and offer citizen transactions through the Internet. The last objective, Gobierno en Linea (government online), or GEL, is a presidential directive established on August 28th, 2000. GEL project phases attempt to ‘webify’ the delivery of government services to citizens and, as well, increase efficiency and transparency in procurement and other highly sensitive functions. The administration’s aggressive two-year project comprises tasks to be completed according to uncompromising project deadlines: o Phase 1: Deliver government information to citizens through the web by December 31st, 2000. o Phase 2: Offer government services and transactions to citizens through the web by December 31st, 2001. o Phase 3: Online procurement by June 30th, 2002. As a result of GEL’s Phase 1, the number of national government institutions with pages and information on the web went from 114 in August 2000 (56 per cent of 203 institutions) to 168 on January 2001, an 83 per cent compliance with the plan. Continued movement to the Internet on the part of municipal and non-national government entities exempt from GEL have boosted ‘gov.co’ domain registrations over the past two years. Compliance with Phase 1 of the directive has been high because reporting guidelines and objectives were clearly communicated to directors of ministries, branches, and state-owned companies in time for them to budget the IT expenses and act on the directive. A similar presidential directive launched by the previous president, Ernesto Samper, failed due to low feedback and lack of vigilance and compliance mechanisms. By the end of Phase 2, government agencies must offer Colombians the option of filing and paying taxes and fines, and of obtaining all required licences and certifications (e.g., driving, commercial and industrial), over the Internet. They also must be able to view surveys, studies and any other publicly funded information created by any governmental entity as well as to submit routine forms through the web. Phase 3 develops online procurement and would add a new element of transparency to all government contracts. Under Agenda de Conectividad, each government entity must solicit and consider bids on its official web site. Over 95 per cent of information generated by public entities must be made available to users. The government hopes that ‘extra-legal’ commissions and bribes will decline as the government transacts procurement and purchase contracts through the Internet. However, the initial pilots are disappointing. Published summaries of public bids are often too short for users to evaluate the details of procured products or services. In other cases, tenders are appearing online with too little time for new potential providers to react. Additionally, two fundamental flaws are hindering GEL Phase 3. First, the lack of stringent publication guidelines for public tenders may derail the transparency of e-procurement as institutions fail to comply with the spirit of the guidelines. Other nations, such as Brazil and Chile, have anticipated and overcome this challenge by requiring sophisticated government procurement and bidding systems managed by a third-party technology vendor under contract to ensure functionality and transparency. Colombia’s highly decentralised approach to procurement misses opportunities for economies of scale and is highly vulnerable to bidding irregularities. Second, GEL compresses the more technically difficult project phases into the same duration as the first so that the project will be completed by the time the current administration leaves office. Government entity compliance is dropping as complex systems integration problems overwhelm their efforts to comply with GEL time lines for Phases 2 and 3. Colombia would do well to lengthen the project duration to 2005 to avoid costly errors made during the current breakneck implementations. Brazil: Universal Access First In the year 2000, Brazil’s federal government launched a programme called ‘Information Society’ that will guide e-government initiatives. Brazil plans to invest $1.8 billion between 2000 and 2003, and may receive an additional $3.0 billion of funds from taxes through 2005. Brazil’s three main lines of e-government action are: public services offered on the web; universal Internet access; and governmental internal process improvement through the Internet. Important milestones are: o 2001-Citizens should be able to pay their taxes via the government sites, performing the entire service cycle over the Internet. o 2002-All the services offered by the government concerning health, education, social security, and employment will be available on the web by December 2002. o 2004-All the services offered by the government in every other area should be available on the Internet by December 2004. o All secondary public schools in Brazil will have Internet access by the end of 2001 (approximately 13,000 institutions); o All state-run schools will have Internet access by 2006; and o Internet users in Brazil will reach 36 million by 2003 (approximately 20 per cent of the population). Universal access is clearly the most pressing challenge. Brazil faces deficiencies in many regions. Until 1999, only 1.3 per cent of public schools had access to the Internet. In rural areas, 29.6 per cent did not even have electricity. The government is building alliances to spur widespread access to the Internet during the next few years: o The incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) Telefonica and the State of São Paulo government will install 204 ‘info centres’ by 2002. These centres will provide free Internet access to lower income users and are expected to serve around 3.5 million people over the next two years. o The state owned financial Institution Caixa Econômica Federal and the ISP Globo.com have launched a PC financing programme with funds of $842.1 million. o The state-owned Banco do Brasil has announced a $1.05 billion consumer credit programme for the purchase of PCs, handheld devices and WAP mobile phones. Brazil’s focus on penetration as a predecessor to most other tasks is entirely correct. Governments that ignore or do not devote adequate resources to increasing Internet penetration will build castles in the sky, unreachable by their citizenry. Mexico: Pick up the E-government’s Tab! Mexico’s e-government initiative, E-Mexico, will cost US$13.5 billion over the next five years. The Mexican government plans to provide 10 per cent. President Vincente Fox is asking the private sector to provide the remaining 90 per cent. The Mexican government will spend US$40 million on the project during 2002 and the project will have its own budget established at the beginning of 2002. E-Mexico aims to provide basic Internet access to at least 10,000 communities in the country as part of the Fox administration’s efforts to modernise government and reduce the digital divide. However, approaching the private sector hat-in-hand for resources to implement a bold and necessary infrastructure project is the clearly the wrong approach. If E-Mexico is worth doing, and by all indications it is, Fox must appropriate and tax his way to the necessary resource levels. In the short and medium terms, Mexico’s Universities, IT vendors and telecom service providers will benefit even as taxpayers wriggle and complain. Conclusions As of mid-2001, only 3 per cent of South American and 4 per cent of Central American government web sites had any executable online citizen services. However, demand for e-government strategies and solutions is building, and represents a huge opportunity for Latin America’s e-builders. By 2003, 16 per cent of their revenues will be derived from e-government projects. However, as governments remake themselves, they need to take the most efficient routes toward online citizen service delivery. In the cases above, it is obvious that reasonable project timelines, universal Internet service initiatives, and fully funded e-government initiatives are imperative. Latin America can ill afford to be a wasteful beta test ground for unproven government services transactions services developed for other environments. Flexible solutions moulded by accurate information are critical. E-government activists, inside and outside government, should take a step back from the equipment and source code before signing an e-government services contract. A deep understanding of the country’s Internet access and online usage patterns, as well as what has been tried successfully or not in neighbouring countries will go a long way towards efficiently spending taxpayer dollars on e-government initiatives.
