Challenges of E-government in Oman
- 1. Integrated Intelligent Research (IIR) International Journal of Business Intelligents Volume: 06 Issue: 01 June 2017 Page No.12-14 ISSN: 2278-2400 12 Challenges of E-government in Oman Huda Salim Fayle AL-Muhiri, Shaima Khamis Ahmed Al-sadi Advanced Diploma, IBRA, Oman IBRA College of Technology Email: 36S1365@ict.edu.om, 36S1358@ict.edu.om Abstract- We briefly discuss about the e-government which is about the finishing transactions between the government and the public through internet. First, we wrote about the three sectors of e-government which are between government and (government, citizens, business). Second, we wrote about benefits that users can get from using e-government. Third, we wrote about the challenges that e-government face. I. INTRODUCTION Every day there are a lot of manual transactions happen between people or citizens and government and this may waste the time of citizens in waiting doing transaction. This is the reason why Oman was implemented e-government or (electronic government). Now, lets define the electronic government. It’s set of processes and government supporting an interaction system that will allow citizens to interact to access the offered services. E-government is an innovation that allows government to control and manage services. In this paper we will discuss in this paper e-government sectors, benefits of e-government and the challenges of implementing e-government in Oman. E-government Sectors There are three activities and sectors of E-government: *Government-to-Government (G2G) * Government-to-Business (G2B) * Government-to-Citizens (G2C) i) Government-to-Government (G2G): This sector is the essential sector in e-government. And before the governments do any electronic transaction with the citizen, it should update the internal system and procedures by sharing exchanging data between each other to avoid any error in information. ii) Government-to-Business (G2B): This sector is between the government and the business. This will help the government sell the surplus to the public. For Example: business organization or companies can be conduct their registrations and licensing via Internet (Online). This will result a reduction in the cost and purchases which will make it more efficient. iii) Government-to-Citizens (G2C): This sector is designed to consolidate the relationship between government and citizens. This is the important aim of e- government. This will help citizens to finish many works such as: renewing licenses, certifications, paying taxes and applying for benefits in less time. In future, the new generation will totally dependent on the internet for daily routine, this will help to use e-government in wide area. Benefits of E-government The e-government is an important thing in contemporary life. Also, it is one of the developments that helped in the flexible interaction between citizens and government all the good will. So, there are many advantages and benefits of e-government. E-government is useful for citizen, business and e-government entities. E-government applications allow people and business to access to available government information at all time (24 hours a day, 7 days week). This will help government to improve the quality of implementation and will reduce cost. Moreover, the using of e-government system will increase the performance of government. Also will be speed to deliver the public services to the customers. In addition, apply e- government in Oman is the great idea to receive and deliver information and services easily, quickly, efficiently and inexpensively. The advantages of e-government are summarized as follows: *Reduce the number of customer, time and effort. *Speed of service delivery to citizens. *Increase number of employees skills, internet knowledge and computer usage *Link and share information between all governments. *Helps in building trust between government and citizens by using internet based policy process. *Increase the government's awareness of the requirement of citizens. *Reduce duplication work. E-government not only save resources, effort and cost but it also increase quality of services and saving time. E- government can change and impact especially in big country like Oman. Challenges of E-Government There are large numbers of potential difficulties in implementation e-government. Lets to discuss those challenges i) Security: Security is very important for e-government because without security government will lose trust of their users. Without trust citizens will avoid using e-services while asking for personal information, so they have to train their employee about how to secure computer or information. They have to make backup regularly and save it in separate place .system must be secured from fraudulent interception. ii) Privacy: Government is responsible about privacy and confidentiality of personal information that they hold from daily transactions of citizens, so government should design application or websites with privacy protection and they should train employees about privacy importance. iii) Multimedia interaction: E-government application will be effective if people can access that website from different devices. iv) Maintainability: Maintainability is very important to have long life systems with wide change in technology field.
- 2. Integrated Intelligent Research (IIR) International Journal of Business Intelligents Volume: 06 Issue: 01 June 2017 Page No.12-14 ISSN: 2278-2400 13 v) E-literacy: Some people do not have enough knowledge about the importance of e-government and some of them do not know how to use technology properly. Applications or website must be local language in their content. They should develop websites or applications with pictures or voice instead of written text .They have to include educational components in websites vi) Digital Divide: Some people can access internet and some of them are not especially who life in mountains. People who can access internet they can not use e-government .That is why government should provide common access point to all citizens .They can use mobile centers if telecommunication is low. vii) Trust: User must feel confident, comfortable and trustworthy with technology tool which they use in order to trust the e- Government viii) Transparency: People sometimes do not understand the decisions of government. This may prevent people from participatory activities in government communications, so government have to make online rules, regulations and requirements. They have to produce transparency and process reform to their regulations and procedures. ix) Economical challenge * The high cost of using the Internet for information. *explain budget x) Political challenge * Absence Electronic Transactions Act * Slow decision-making process II. UN SURVEY ANALYSIS Fig 1: UN Factor Analysis 2010, 2012 and 2014 The Sultanate of Oman has invested all means for the development and expansion of e-government over the past years. But no reliance because of some of the aspects and challenges faced by Oman such as, internet is limited, the preparation of low computer. Thus it is necessary to meet these challenges in order to achieve success and the expansion of e- government in Oman. Many studies and analyzes conducted by the United Nations to all over the world about their willingness to implement e-government and development have been conducted. Table 1 shows how ready Oman from various aspects. It turned out that by the 2010-2014 e-government arrangement in Oman is a rose significantly during the period studied. Oman has been the order of 24 row rose by only 4 years, and 18 row from 2010-2012 and 16 in a row from 2012 to 2014. It was a gross national income reached a high temperature is too high to 25250 with the level of income among citizens and also human capital has experienced a slight decrease from 2012-2014, but all this did not affect the country's progress in electronic transactions I Oman. Table 1: UN factor analysis 2010, 2012 and 2014 III. THREE PERSPECTIVES OF A SUCCESSFUL E- GOVERNMENT: There are three main perspectives of e-government including citizens, business and government that need to develop for a successful e-government. i) Citizens Perspectives: The e-government is for the benefit of the upgrade of Oman. But citizens are the main target and influential category for such services. And also that the citizen is the one who will assess the project if it is successful or not, and handsome recognition through citizen participation. And if they are not participating in the project it would only be a waste of time and money. It has a number of researchers in this study, and (G2C) should be simple and easy process so that any citizen does not face difficulties while do their transactions. The study also erected a year (2011) to know about the services and benefits provided by the e-government, and it turned out that through which a small number of the studied sample have the knowledge on this topic ii) Business Perspectives: The private sector is the one who promotes and affect the service provided to the public. Some researchers have considered it a major part of the e-government project because the government needs to engage it with the banks, for example, (a balance transfer or credit payment) and you also need to participate with agencies phones to send short messages to citizens. iii) Government Perspectives: Here is where the government administration internally and externally, prior to the submission of e-government to the public. So that should be communication between the interior sections of the government and foreign government agencies and foreign institutions, to integrate information about the ways the Internet to exchange information, improve efficiency and lower costs. And the current situation of electronic government in Oman is that government agencies have their
- 3. Integrated Intelligent Research (IIR) International Journal of Business Intelligents Volume: 06 Issue: 01 June 2017 Page No.12-14 ISSN: 2278-2400 14 own sites allow citizens to check the required information and upload all forms and applications. IV. EXAMPLE OF E-GOVERNMENT APPLICATIONS IN OMAN i) Educational Portal: Is an educational system and an interactive digital environment linking electronically (student, teacher, parent, school, and ministry) through the internet and through a variety of programs and computerized systems in order to facilitate the learning process and provide them in a more effective and suspense form. It also helps to organize and follow up on administrative work by making them more compact and electronic archiving. Consider that educational portal and a means of communications between the Ministry of Education database and between the ministry and audience to which it belongs, whether they are from the governing body or the faculty members of all sectors kalmias and region educational and school. Or between the student and the parent or guardian and the members of the community who are interested in this sector; the aim of providing administrative services were electronic or educational. And it can be accessed through this portal facets, either by the browser, which the ministry's website or by audio interface which phone lines. Educational Portal is currently applied in three educational zones, namely Muscat, Al-Buraimi and Al-Batinah South, the ministry is striving in order to add the rest of the school districts gradually in accordance with the development of its infrastructure and private data now that has been added in the educational portal system ii) HEAC: Specialties HEAC shall be determined as follows: 1) Coordination with higher education institutions with respect to the fundamentals and the admission requirements for each educational institution in accordance with the disciplines and have the absorptive capacity. 2) Participate in the development plans for the acceptance of policies in coordination with higher education institutions. 3) Create data on applicants for higher education institutions and to provide competent state organs planning the statistical data in coordination with the concerned ministry base. 4) Media awareness programs Academy of operations admissions to institutions of higher education. 5) 5)The receipt, review and registration of applicants for admission to institutions of higher education in accordance with the advertised disciplines and conditions set and the distribution of students admitted to these institutions and to inform them and institutions accepted by the results of the acceptance. 6) Regulate the process of admission and enrollment of students applying to institutions of higher education. 7) Conducting studies and research on acceptance of the planning and development work in the unified admission policies. 8) To provide students with evidence guidelines for universities, colleges and institutes and provide the query with respect to institutions of higher education service. iii) Online banking of bank Muscat Online banking from Bank Muscat banking is easier for you to do your transactions so that you can now access to your bank accounts around the clock and seven days a week, any day of the year amounting to 365 days, from anywhere in the world Banking for online services provided by Bank Muscat provides you with a wide range of banking facilities such as the transfer of funds between different bank accounts and pay water, electricity, telephone and create invoices / renew a deposit for addition to the payment of credit card dues and request a checkbook or pay on demand is and a lot of services diversified banking. Who can request this service? All you need to log in to online banking is to have a saving or current account .This service is available to individuals and corporate customers. All this for free! You can take advantage of facilitating online banking services free of charge. Moreover, you can do without visiting the branch for a variety of transactions. The advantages of online banking online banking is from a quick, safe and easy Bank Muscat V. CONCLUSION In short, we discussed about one feature that helps to improve the county which is E-government. E-government is transaction between government, business and citizens to provide public services by using electronic communication devices, computer and internet. We discussed ector of E- government, benefits of E-government, challenges of E- government, a survey analysis and example of E-government applications in Oman. E-government is the best solution to restructure government upon IT bases. 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