may push governments to enhance their internal capacities. This organisational issue lead governments to activate e-administration.
The US example also indicates that the government reforms are applied to all departments and agencies with encouragement from politicians Brown, 2001. The
same political driver also stimulates implementation of health management in Ecuador Salazar, 2001. Despite focus on central operation, the Ministry of Public Health of
Ecuador also enforced local level by central diktat. When central government enacts information system for collecting reports, local government will inevitably use the same
system. It can be argued that ICT regulation forces all official elements to use IT in their daily working. However, the reforms of policy changes now focus in time and scope on
shift in current technology and information value Dunleavy et al. 2006.
The development of technology also has role on driving government changes.
Technological convergence, caused by the rapid development of computing and communications, drives government to be a part of the changes Bellamy Taylor 1998.
Electronic networks allow cross-matching and integration of data in different places and different departments. They also enable flexibility and connectivity to acquire much more
autonomy which can be break down as e-Organisations or e-Agencies Fang 2002. All these drivers i.e. economic, organisational, political and technological factors enable
better internal performances. Its aim is to improve public sector capabilities i.e. Cheaper, More, Quicker, Better and New in three basic modes i.e. Replace, Support and
Innovate Heeks, 2010b. These capabilities can be seen from the recent impacts. For example, there was the e-Fez implementation in Morocco, which supports back-office
government jobs to provide citizen certificates Kettani and Mahidi 2009.
Firstly, in replace mode, this program has been successfully improved government
performance. The e-Fez allowed more production on delivering public certificates. It increased from minimum 80
– maximum 1500 per day to minimum 100 – maximum 2000 certificates each day. This application also reduced citizen waiting time from an average
48 hours to 6 hours, which was quicker than before. The cheaper benefit was coming from citizen side when the e-Fez may save their money for transportation cost. Moreover,
they do not have to pay tips for the officials.
Secondly, the support mode enables ICT for optimising government which
indicated by better capability Heeks 2010b. From the example above, the quality improvement of certificate delivery has been identified as better process. It is increase
from poor 58 to excellent 83 Kettani and Mahidi 2009.
Lastly, its capability to predict the service delivery was identified as the new
process produced by the system. This innovate mode allows e-administration to reengineer government in supporting new human processes Heeks 2010b.
II.2 Key Challenges
Implementing e-Administration is not as simple as it designed. This is regarding the fact that most e-government projects are failure Heeks 2006, especially in
developing countries. There are three main challenges as barriers in most of developing countries those implementing e-Administration.
The first constraint is the policy and political will. According to Birkland 2011, public policy is defined as a statement made by the executives to handle societal problem. A
regulation may become an impediment when it failed to support the goals of e- government Greenhill 2010a, including e-administration projects. Administrative law,
copyright law, and liability law are some examples of legal areas that underpin e- administration barriers EC 2007a. A weak policy may also caused by political
leadership failures. It involves the failures in favouring e-government initiatives, minor prioritisation of resource allocation, poor senior management understanding of e-
government and the lack of political will EC 2007a.
A number of examples from developing countries are provided as evidences of the existences of this problem. A Participatory Information System PIS has been
implemented in Balochistan Province in Pakistan. It was a part of The Balochistan Trial District Management Project funded by United Nation Development Programme UNDP
to support decentralisation. The main aim of the PIS is “to address the acute lack basic up-to-
date data” that is used by district government to plan, manage and monitor public development activities Qazi 2008. This e-administration system has been evaluated as
a successful IS, although the sustainability of the system has not been evaluated yet. However, there are some challenges when implementing the PIS. In making decision,
senior officials did not use the formal and rational information generated by the system. Their decisions have been based on informal and political information Qazi 2008.
The other case is from Mozambique when applying a land licensing and planning system for Beira City. This GIS system provided land information, both database report
and spatial map, to support decision making of structure plan of the city. During the installation, political leadership felt unsatisfied with the database results, and decided to
abandon the application Jackson 2002.
Political instability also constrains implementation of Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority NADRA. Changes of governments often follow by changes
in regulations. The new government stops the project because of political issues rather than costbenefit reasons Ahmed 2002.
Beside political constraint, the lack of resources can also be a barrier to e-
administration. The resources encompass infrastructures and human skills. To take benefits of the new information and communication technologies, the development of
basic infrastructure is crucial for implementing e-government InfoDev 2002; Greenhill 2010b, especially in small local authorities Sánchez et al. 2006. Even though the
infrastructures are available, uneducated workers cannot access the application because they lack for ICT skills Dada 2006.
Taking an example from the first case study in Balochistan before, the absence of ICT infrastructure and human skills became a challenge to implement PIS system Qazi
2008. The lack of IT access has constrained the project, particularly in rural areas. Meanwhile, although trainings have been provided for government staffs to institutionalise
the system, the lack of IT skills were still exist.
Human resource issues have also been a challenge when applying NADRA project in Pakistan. A lack of staff skills and the problems of hiring short-term staff caused delays
in producing outputs Ahmed 2002. Beside that, the shortage of computer equipment was also a barrier to gain maximum benefit from the system.
The similar obstacle also occurred in Bangladesh. A National Data Bank NDB project has been deployed as an integrated database to provide a huge range of data
and information for many levels of stakeholders. The NDB linked twelve ministries and divisions based on fibre optic and VSAT connections. This e-administration application
purposes to help the Statistics Division of the Planning Commission on addressing problems of inconsistency, redundancy, inadequacy, inaccurate and less timely data
Anonymous 2002. Unfortunately, this project was not running well. One of the reasons of this totally failure was because of inadequate human resource practices. Inappropriate
technical, strategic and project capabilities within government had become a barrier for its implementation.
The last key challenge is problem in sourcing and internal collaboration.
Governments have to maintain partnerships with other organisations, either private sectors or non-profit organisations, as well as relationships within departments infoDev
2002. On the one hand, a poor coordination between central, regional and local agencies may leads to ineffectiveness of e-government EC 2007a, especially for
implementing e-administration. On the other hand, the large demand of e-administration systems requires external vendors to provide high quality products and services
Greenhill 2010c.
The NDB’s failure in Bangladesh again can be an example of IS sourcing constraint. It was reported that the 440,000 project fell to the one of main local IT
provider. The vendor changed technological and price specification several times during proposal process which was indicated as government interferences. This poor
coordination between government and suppliers then caused the withdrawal of the agent from the process. It undermined the project entirely Anonymous 2002.
Politicisation and personalisation tendering was also an obstacle when applying computerise programme in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs MoFA in a West African state
Olivier 2002. This new system was designed to connect the Ministry and its diplomatic missions abroad through intranet and external Website as well. However, this e-
administration project was notified as an unsuccessful system while none of its main objectives were achieved.
On the other side, a problem of internal government collaboration caused failures in most e-government projects in Abu Dhabi Ng 2009. Qirim, a professor in UAE
University, said that the main obstacles of this unsuccessfulness due to the lack of cooperation within government.
The three key challenges that have been described above can be mapped into e- Government-Specific Management Issues Heeks and Greenhill 2010. Firstly, the Lack
of Infrastructure and Skill Resources is a key challenge as dimensions of Digital Divide Greenhill 2010b. Secondly, Regulation and Political Will is a key challenge in term of
Legislation. Greenhill 2010a points out that public policy affecting the implementation of legislation. Legislation itself can be defined as law that has been issued by the
government, both by executives and legislative. Lastly, a barrier from sourcing and collaboration can be fixed with Outsourcing and Partnership issue Greenhill 2010c.
Nevertheless, because e-administration only cope internal organisation, it has limited interaction with other agencies outside the government. Figure 4 illustrates eGovernment-
Specific Management Issues that deal with eGovernment-Specific Applications, including eAdministration as G2G application.
Figure 3. e-Government Overall Framework Heeks and Greenhill 2010 II.3 Best Practices
The key challenges those mentioned in the previous section can be eliminated with some strategies. The following categorises are some samples of best practices which has
been implemented in particular developing economic countries. First, e-leadership can be a best practice to solve legislation problem. Avolio et al.
2001, who have researched in an area of the way in which advanced information technology affects organisation structure including leadership, point out that e-leadership
means the changes of attitude, behaviour, thoughts, performance of people in organisations as an impact of the use of information technology. Regarding the e-
government transformation, every level of officials and administrators should have enough understanding of the technology to push the administrative reform infoDev
2002. Strong leadership, both from executives and legislatives, can enhance confidence of a program. Chief Information Systems CIO need to be established in all government
bodies to support IT initiatives EC 2007a.
For instance, a successful electronic Birth Registration Information System BRIS in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, was supported by its leader commitment Ahmed 2002. The
Mayor of local government speech at a Special UN Session on Child Rights in New York, influenced the BRIS sustainability. It has made a contribution on motivating senior
commissioners to support this application for accepting their advantages of being re- elected.
The Colombia’s Government Portal PEC illustrates a different approach of the leadership factor. This project was a government initiative to achieve the goal of the
President mandate that all agencies have to develop an Internet access and create a unit to provide real
–time information of its progression. The PEC was extremely success because of high supports from the President directly. He launched the project with the
presidential decree, namely Directiva 02. He also received the reports routinely from the Head of the Connectivity Agenda who responsible for the government online
implementation Porrua et al. 2001. The second best practice is resource management in order to addressing the lack of
resources problem. A good resource management is prioritising the most important elements, for example basic hardware and software, and employee training. Government
may implement open source application in order to reduce the high cost of buying licence software Sánchez 2006. Mobile phones EC 2007b can also be used for
communication among staffs, considering cell phones have become a general trend for most employees. A constant and intensive employee training should be provided Holmes
2001, both direct and distance learning, to make sure the sustainability of the system.
A success story of implementing Open Source Software OSS has been practiced by Malaysian government. Malaysia has been identified as 90 success rate for adopting
OSS in government Tiemann 2010. During the 2010 MyGOSSCON, a Malaysian Government OSS Conference, the Public Sector OSS Case Study Awards were given to
92 submissions from Public Sectors and Public Institutes of Higher Learning IPTA. Malaysian government has found that OSS not only helps government to improve its job,
but also enhances national economic development.
In hardware initiatives, Rwanda Government has used mobile phone to connect health workers to the ministry. A monthly report about expectant mother and infants has
been delivering directly by the employees, thus the central government could monitor and administering medicine availability to the people. The use of mobile phones allowed long
distance communication between the ministry and health workers in rural areas. Over 2,500 mobile phones has been disseminates to the workers as information flow improved
to the authorities Ndabananiye 2010.
On the other hand, to provide CIO skills, the Government of Moldova held an education project for the public servants. This pilot project, that was collaboration between
the Ministry of Public Administration and Technical University of Moldova, was success in teaching the government employees to know how to operate computers, the Internet
and office applications. These officials were then implementing and promoting their knowledge of the new technology in public administration UNDP 2010.
The last good practice is applying outsourcing and effective collaboration either
within e-government or with other stakeholders. A strong partnership has to be managed efficiently. Communication is a key point to build an effective collaboration with other third
parties, such as academics and private sectors 2010. It is almost impossible for government to develop an integrated system without providing a larger market Greenhill
2010c, considering the huge responsibility that the government has to deal with. Cooperation and integration within government also have to be strengthened with
encouraging agencies and departments infoDev 2002.
This best practice has been implemented by Morocco’s government when applying eFez application Kettani and Mahidi 2009. Bureau d’Etat Civil BEC, local
government offices in Morocco, records every citizen lives’ event to provide personal and formal certificates for citizen purposes. Together with researchers from Al Akhawayn
University in Ifrane, the government has built a pilot project to delivery this service. An electronic Fundamental Etat-civil System eFez was deployed in the local
administration. Besides serving the front-office electronically, this project also automated the BEC back-
office which provides internal operations for employees’ work. This collaboration between research and practice has produced a good result. The eFez gains
75 efficiency for quality and high speed delivery services. It has been recognized that delivery elapsed time reduced from 48 hours to 6 hours waiting time. The error rate also
dropped from many errors to few errors. Its productivity improved from 689.09 daily
certificate deliveries to 828.18 per day. In back-office performance, the eFez project also has significant impact on reducing stress level of employees. The labour also dropped
from an average of 10.09 employees to 2.27 workers per BEC.
The partnership between public and private sector has also been built in Rwanda e-Health case. The government together with its technology partners, i.e. MTN and
Voxiva, provided 2,500 mobile phones to the health workers in villages. It allowed the workers to communicate with the expert or call ambulances with no cost Ndababaniye
2010. The last good practice is applying outsourcing and effective collaboration either within
e-government or with other stakeholders. A strong partnership has to be managed efficiently. Communication is a key point to build an effective collaboration with other third
parties, such as academics and private sectors 2010. It is almost impossible for government to develop an integrated system without providing a larger market Greenhill
2010c, considering the huge responsibility that the government has to deal with. Cooperation and integration within government also have to be strengthened with
encouraging agencies and departments infoDev 2002.
This best practice has been implemented by Morocco’s government when applying eFez application Kettani and Mahidi 2
009. Bureau d’Etat Civil BEC, local government offices in Morocco, records every citizen lives’ event to provide personal and
formal certificates for citizen purposes. Together with researchers from Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, the government has built a pilot project to delivery this service. An
electronic Fundamental Etat-civil System eFez was deployed in the local administration. Besides serving the front-office electronically, this project also automated
the BEC back-office which provides inte
rnal operations for employees’ work. This collaboration between research and practice has produced a good result. The eFez gains
75 efficiency for quality and high speed delivery services. It has been recognized that delivery elapsed time reduced from 48 hours to 6 hours waiting time. The error rate also
dropped from many errors to few errors. Its productivity improved from 689.09 daily certificate deliveries to 828.18 per day. In back-office performance, the eFez project also
has significant impact on reducing stress level of employees. The labour also dropped from an average of 10.09 employees to 2.27 workers per BEC.
The partnership between public and private sector has also been built in Rwanda e-Health case. The government together with its technology partners, i.e. MTN and
Voxiva, provided 2,500 mobile phones to the health workers in villages. It allowed the workers to communicate with the expert or call ambulances with no cost Ndababaniye
2010. To sum up, the three obstacles which happened in most developing countries may be
solved by the three best practices that also occurred in other developing countries. The most important lesson is that a successful e-administration project needs strong
commitment from all stakeholders. References
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A REVIEW ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF REGIONAL AUTONOMY IN INDONESIA BASED ON ADMINISTRATIVE DECENTRALISATION PERSPECTIVE
Syahrul Alamsyah KPPN Palembang, Direktorat Jenderal Perbendaharaan, Kementerian Keuangan,
caul97gmail.com
II. INTRODUCTION
