Singapore Goes From E-Govt to M-Govt

SINGAPORE-TECH
By Mawutodzi K. Abissath

Have you observed that Ghanaians seem to be great talkers in grand style? We can talk from January to December non-stop. But do we act as we talk? That should be our challenge for the coming year. Meanwhile, let’s take note of this simple African proverb which says: “It is not easy to catch up with the person who takes the first step ahead of you.”

For a moment, just imagine yourself sitting in your living room relaxing after a hard day of struggling for survival. Take some deep breaths at your own pace. Exhale slowly through your nose and feel at peace with your Creator. Forget about all the troubles you went through in the course of the day and express gratitude to the God of your own experiences. Thank you for that.

Fellow Ghanaians, media troublesome engineers, legal technicality technicians, medical ransom servants, military cum police paratroopers, armed robbers and pick-pocket strategists, street trading gurus, night duty attendants, soccer millionaires and ‘fufu’ and ‘banku’ producers, – all protocol observed: I bring you peace and love from the angels of Singapore.

I am delighted to inform you that thanks to Ghana’s Ministry of Information and National, Orientation (MINO) I was privileged to participate in a short training course in Singapore from 7th to 20th November 2006. The course was Chief Information Officer (CIO) Training Programme in Strategic Management of Information Technology (IT).

While in Singapore, I visited some technological zoo where I discovered some strange creature I have never heard of hitherto. It is called M-GOVERNMENT .Because we now live in a world of Knowledge Management (KM) and experience sharing, it does not pay to hoard knowledge and information any longer. So I feel I must share with you, my fellow country men and women the little knowledge I gleaned about M-Government. That is the motivation for this piece.

As a matter fact, virtually all 28 representatives from 25 developing nations on the programme confessed that that was the first time they were all being introduced to a terminology such as mgovernment. Mind you, almost all participants were top government officials and ICT experts in their own right in their respective countries. There was another Ghanaian from the Ministry of Communications, too, by the name Kwadwo Darko Anyane-Yeboah. And so what is MGovernment?

Well, as you know, as this writer has always maintained, he is not an ICT guru; therefore, he will not pretend to be what he is not. He will speak as a layman, giving an overview of the state of the global ICT in the language that the JSS graduate in Domiabra village should be able to interpret it to his grand- mother in their own dialect. This is to avoid a situation where the grandmother and others even in Accra may think that a computer is a human being the police can arrest and prosecute. No! Computer is a machine. You can use it to type a letter at the post office square like a typewriter.

Computer can also be used to do so many things including directing a robot to land on the moon and come back on earth without any human being piloting it. You can go on the Internet through a computer that is networked and study all the subjects in your syllabus. Before we find out about M-Government, let’s grant that everybody in Ghana knows already what E-Government is. True or fault? Ok, just in case it escapes you: E-government simply means electronic government; or cyber government; or digital government; or online government. It means the ability of governments to provide information and services to its citizens online, using ICT tools like Internet or computers that are inter-connected to talk to one another.

Governments must put the relevant technological infrastructure in place and then train citizens how to use the facility. For example, in Singapore, if a parent wants to pay his child’s school fees, he or she does not need to physically take ‘tro-tro’ to the school. He can do that in his own sitting room at home online. Or if you want to pay your electricity and water bills, you don’t have to travel all the way to the customer service centre only to join a long queue from the counter to the outside where the sun will be burning you or the rain will be beating you just to pay money to a utility company. All these services and other transactions can be done electronically. That is what is known as e-government in simple terms.

Right now Ghana Government has done a great deal in the area of e-government. It has established a national website known as Ghana Portal or Government Website www.ghana.gov.gh since 2003. Government is still making tremendous efforts toredesign and upgrade that national website to render better interactive and transaction online services to citizens. It is just a matter of time and e-government services will be booming in Ghana. When E-Ghana Project comes into full operation, all will be well. No cause for alarm.

M-Government
For purposes of this write-up, there is no need to be kept in suspense. Nobody should rack his brain over that terminology at all. M-Government simply stands for mobile government. That is all. So the ability of governments to provide information and services to their citizens any time, any where while they are on the move going about their business is called M-Government. Period!

In actual fact, m-government is not as simple as I put it here. This is to enable the JSS graduate in Ghana to interpret m-government to his grand-mother in the village. But M-government is the convergence of wireless technologies and e-government. Does it sound a bit technical now? Ok, no technical jargons here! For a government to provide m-government services to its citizens, it must be in a position to establish what is known as Potential Mobile Application to the public sector. With this technology in place, the government can offer the following to its citizens:

1- Offer Push Services subscribed by the citizens. Here citizens can choose the state or government information they will like to receive. For instance, if you live around Adenta and you want to go to Dansoman all in Accra, you will be able to access traffic report on your mobile phone in order to plan your journey. You will even know if some “koborlor articulator ‘aplankey’ has blocked the road at the Dansoman junction at Odokor so that
you don’t pass there at all.

2-Monitoring and Tracking of telephone bills. This service will make it possible for parents to monitor and track the telephone bills of their children in such a way that as soon as the bills reach a preset value, an alert will be sent to the parent instantly. Then he can decide whether the child should continue using the phone or hold on until the bills are paid first.

3-Patient Alert Service: This is a unique service where a patient who reports at a hospital can just register his name and go to check his mails in a cyber café, or go to a library or any comfortable place and rest until it is his turn. Then about 15 minutes to the time, an alert or a text massage will be sent to him to see the doctor. Just compare this to the situation where you go to a hospital at dawn and you will have to wait till about 2.00 pm and you don’t even know if the doctor will see you or not.

4-Criminal Records Retrieval System: This is another fruit of m-government whereby the police officers have more comprehensive, accurate and much faster information on criminals. They can obtain vital data instantaneously on all dubious characters in society so as to improve their security and safety service to the community.

5-Wireless Connectivity in Schools: With this m-government facility in educational institutions, universities, polytechnics, and teacher-training colleges, secondary and even primary school students and pupils can wirelessly access Internet and study their lessons online anywhere within their campuses or compounds. This is the practical demonstration of m-government. And these are just a few of its benefits to citizens in terms of efficient and effective use of time, energy and money. There will be no need for about 500 students crowding in one small lecture theatre with some standing outside and be writing using the back of their colleagues as a desk. If you don’t like M-Government, then what do you want? But Ghana is not there yet. We have long, long, kilometers to travel.

Challenges
Since there is no perfection in any human institution or technology on this planet of evolution, it must be pointed out that M-government also has its challenges. And in this instance, the challenges border more or less on privacy, security and accessibility mainly. Some countries such as Canada, US, and some European nations are making good use of mgovernment already. In Singapore, the m-government is highly advanced. For instance, the Singapore Ministry of Defence, the Police Force, the Supreme Court, the port and other institutions are making effective use of m-government services.

As a matter of fact, Singapore has already programmed itself for the next stage of e-government which is I-Government by 2010. I-Government stands for Integrated Government. When you reach that stage, a doctor can stay in a hospital and perform an operation on a patient in his own bedroom. That is the vision of Singapore Government.

Africa, where art thou? In America, it has been established that, “since the September 11 tragedy, several states – California among them- have shown interest in incorporating wireless into a security and terrorism-alert system.” Singapore advises that to make m-government pertinent, governments have to find the most useful applications. That “the trick is finding content that is highly relevant, useful and time sensitive.” African ICT gurus, are you there? abissath3@yahoo.co.uk

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