Study of e-Governance Initiatives in Papua New Guinea (PNG) Ponnusamy Manohar, Pulapa Subba Rao and Albert Mellam School of Business Administration, University of Papua New Guinea National Capital District, Papua New Guinea pomanoha@yahoo.com pulapsr@upng.ac.pg al.mellam@upng.ac.pg Abstract: e- Governance is a growing concept around the globe that brought paradigm shifts in the system of exchange of information among the government organizations/departments and their citizens/ clients. Various institutions of Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) have been working since the year 2000 in order to improve their networking infrastructures while enhancing the security and performance of the systems. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy and regulatory and legislative framework has been in place since 2008. The aim of this paper is to study the e- governance initiatives, infrastructure and human capacity necessary to implement e-governance process in PNG in comparison with various countries and in particular with South Pacific countries. The study is conducted primarily by using the secondary sources of data and information from various departments and institutions of the Government PNG and the reports of international agencies. However, primary sources of information were also made use of wherever, necessary. It is observed that e-government infrastructure index for PNG declined from 0.2539 in 2005 to 0.2078 in 2008 and the e-government infrastructure ranking for PNG increased from 142 in 2005 to 166 in 2008 due to higher growth of e-government infrastructure in other world countries than in PNG. Web measure index, infrastructure index and human capacity index for PNG in 2008 were 0.0870, 0.0221 and 0.5180 respectively in 2008 where as the same were 0. 2742, 0.0982 and 0.8786 respectively for Fiji in 2008. E-government readiness index was only 0.2078 for PNG whereas it was 0.4156 for Fiji. It is concluded that no significant move is taken to implement e-Governance public service delivery system in PNG. Hence, strategic directions based on the findings of the study are offered to modify the governance process in the areas of providing required e-governance infrastructure and improving necessary human capacity to implement e-governance initiatives for efficient delivery of services in mountainous and islands dominant PNG. Keywords: Information and Communication Technology (ICT), E-Governance, Public Service Delivery, Customer Satisfaction, Service Quality

1. Introduction E-governance is a digitalization of government service delivery mechanisms. This has its own advantages which include simplicity of service delivery, morality and integrity in the public sector as well as accountability, responsiveness and transparency in the discharge of public goods and services.

In technology, E-government and ecommerce all represent the introduction of technological innovations. However, Unlike E-Commerce, E-government is usually defined as the use of technology to enhance information sharing, service delivery, constituency and client participation, and governance by transforming internal and external relationships. This includes transactions between government and business, government and citizen, government and employee, and among different units and levels of government. In another sense, E-business and e-commerce are subsets of e-government.

The three main target groups that can be distinguished in e-governance concepts are government G2G (Government 2 Government), citizens G2C (Government 2 Citizen,) and businesses/interest groups G2B (Government 2 Business) as depicted in Fig.1. The external strategic objectives focus on citizens and businesses and interest groups, the internal objectives focus on government itself.

E-governance is beyond the scope of e-government. While e-government is defined as a mere delivery of government services and information to the public using electronic means, e-governance allows citizen direct participation of constituents in political activities going beyond government and includes E-democracy, E-voting, and participating political activity online. So, most broadly, concept of E-governance will cover government, citizens’ participation, political parties and organizations, Parliament and Judiciary functions. (Fang, 2003)

Harris (2000) argues that E-governance is not just about government web site and e-mail. It is not just about service delivery over the Internet. It is not just about digital access to government information or

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electronic payments. It will change how citizens relate to governments as much as it changes how citizens relate to each other. It will bring forth new concepts of citizenship, both in terms of needs and responsibilities. E-governance will allow citizens to communicate with government, participate in the governments' policy-making and citizens to communicate each other and to participate in the democratic political process. Therefore, in broadest sense, E-governance has more implications than E-Government.

Figure: 1 Interactions among main groups in e-governance

 

Source: Extracted from Michael Bakus, e-governance Developing Countries Research Report 2001

2. e-Governance Partnerships and Initiatives Summarized from a research on E-Governance, normally, government identifies and drives implementation of major three types of E-governance which can bring significant benefits to the Government, citizens, business, employees and other non-profit organizations and political and social organizations. A more connected approach to service delivery will mean more efficient government. Greater use of online, electronic and voice-based service delivery will help reduce costs. More targeted and strategic investments in technology will result in less duplication and more common underlying business processes across different government agencies. E-Governance initiatives should focus on the following categories.

Government-to-Citizen (G2C): Provide the momentum to put public services online, in particular through the electronic service delivery for offering information and communications directly to the public. These services include licensing and permitting for hunting, fishing, and driving privileges. This will not only include the payment of taxes, fines, and fees to state and local governments, but also the payment of refunds to taxpayers.

Government-to-Business (G2B): Actively drive E-transactions initiatives such as e-procurement and the development of an electronic marketplace for government purchases; and carry out Government procurement tenders through electronic means for exchange of information and commodities. This relationship model refers to those services consumed by entrepreneurs, businesses, and corporations, for a commercial purpose (profit or non-profit). These include filing statements of incorporation, obtaining business licenses, assistance with site locations, and obtaining workforce information. (Najjar, 2003).

Government-to-Government (G2G): Provide the Government's departments or agencies cooperation and communication online base on mega database of government to have an impact on efficiency and effectiveness. It also includes internal exchange of information and commodities. This refer to the coordination of both inter- and intra- agency cooperation and employees to improve services inside or outside governments. This includes travel requests, purchasing requisitions, payroll processing, intergovernmental fund transfers, and position applications, etc. We can also specify the Government-to-Employee (G2E) model to embark on initiatives that will facilitate the management of the civil service and internal communication with governmental employees in order to make e-career applications and processing system paperless in E-office

Significance of the Study: Papua New Guinea comprises of largely mountainous and around 600 offshore islands. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea). Papua New Guinea is richly endowed with natural resources, but exploitation has been hampered by the rugged terrain and the

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high cost of developing infrastructure. As such movement of people as well as goods is mostly by air which is exorbitantly costly and/or by sea which is considerably slow. Consequently, among others, coordination among various government departments at various levels particularly at the provincial and local level is very ineffective. E-governance is expected to play a critical and useful role in avoiding most of the inconveniences of the geographical hurdles in providing the government services efficiently and timely to the people throughout the nook and corner of the country. Hence the current study is important and timely to present the current state of e-governance initiatives and offer appropriate suggestions.

E-government in PNG, when implemented fully will improve services to citizens; improve the productivity of government agencies; improve the quality of life for the disadvantaged; strengthen and maintain good governance; broaden public participation and link all sectors within the country so as to promote effective communication among all, for a better Government.

Methodology: The data and information were collected from the secondary sources like reports, records and books. However, the information from the primary sources was also made use of to supplement the information from the secondary sources.

3. e-Governance Initiatives in PNG vis-a-vis Other Countries Use of information technology for all kinds of purposes has been growing in various countries. Availability and use of information technology infrastructure are highly essential to introduce and operate e-governance in any country including PNG. Internet emerged in PNG in 1995. At that time only few large cities in PNG were connected through the internet and the internet user population was as small as few hundred users. However, since 2007 the same has been increased more than 10 times from its inception. The internet access has now been made available to all cities while the total number of internet users reached to about 0.5 million in May 2010. This is mostly due to the various steps taken by the Government of PNG like connection of remotest areas of the country with the wireless Internet access. However, International Telecommunication Union report indicates that PNG scored 0.26 in access to information and communication technology. (ADB Institute, 2005).

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report considered availability of infrastructure, affordability of access, educational level, quality of ICT services, and Internet usage while computing the index. The result of the index shows that the access to ICT infrastructure and services are very poor in PNG. Hence it is felt that the comparative study of availability of e-government infrastructure in various countries would make it clear with regard to e-governance initiatives in PNG. (Expert National Report, 2009).

Availability of required infrastructure and capacity to use it determine the readiness of a country to proceed with the implementation of e-governance initiatives. The average global e-government infrastructure index continues to increase as more countries invest resources in developing websites that are informative. Most countries have e-information on policies, laws and an archive section on their portals/websites. The gap between e-information, e-consultation and e-decision-making is still wide for developing and developed countries (UN e- governance Report, 2008).

For the first time since this survey has been produced, there is a new leader. In the 2008 Survey, Sweden (0.9157) took the number one spot from the United States. The Scandinavian countries took the top three spots in the 2008 Survey, with Denmark (0.9134) and Norway (0.8921) in second and third place respectively. The United States (0.8644) came in fourth. In 2008 e-government readiness rankings, the European countries make up 70 per cent of the top 35 countries. (International Telecommunication Union Report,2008).The Asian countries make up 20 per cent of the top 35 and the North American and Oceania regions 5 per cent. The European countries as a group have invested heavily in deploying broadband infrastructure, coupled with an increase in the implementation of e-government applications for their citizens. Yet, according to the ITU, the European countries make up nine of the top ten countries in broadband subscribers per hundred, with Denmark, the Netherlands and Iceland being the top three countries. (UN Report 2008). In the Oceania region Australia (0.81080) and New Zealand (0.7392) continue to lead this region by a wide margin and should be treated separately from other island countries. Papua New Guinea ranked 142 out of 182 on the studies in 2008 while Fiji (105) leads pacific island group. Table- 1 depicts the overall picture of the e-government index and ranking in the region.

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Table-1: E-Government Infrastructure for Oceania Country 2008 2005 2008 2005

Index Index Ranking Ranking Australia 0.8108 0.8679 8 6 New Zealand 0.7392 0.7987 18 13 Fiji 0.4156 0.4081 105 81 Tonga 0.3950 0.3680 112 104 Samoa 0.3761 0.3680 115 91 Solomon Islands 0.2748 0.2669 147 140 Vanuatu 0.2510 0.1664 154 165 Papua New Guinea 0.2078 0.2539 166 142 Kiribati Marshal Islands 0.0440 177 Micronesia 0.0532 176 Nauru 0.0357 179 Palau 0.0564 175 Tuvalu 0.0370 178 Region 0.4338 0.2888World 0.4514 0.4267

Table 2: Extracted from UN report on E – Government Survey 2008 Ranking The results of the Public e-Governance infrastructure index indicates that governments are moving forward albeit at a slow pace, which is normal when considering the infrastructure, policies, capacity development, applications and content that need to be in place in order to fully implement e-government services.

The governments that invested in broadband infrastructure scored relatively high in 2008 survey. A closer look at the infrastructure index reveals that investment in cellular phones has been dramatic over the last three years by both the developed and developing countries. According to the ITU’s 2006 data, 41 inhabitants per 100 have cellular phones and this number will inevitably grow. Governments must now look at ways of providing e-government services via cellular phones.

Table-2: E- Government - Infrastructure Data 2008

Country

Internet PC Cellular Main

Telephone Broadband

Per 100 Users

Per 100 Users

Subscribers Per 100 Users

Lines Per 100 Users

Per 100 Users

Papua New Guinea 1.83 6.64 1.27 1.08 0Australia 75.12 76.61 97.02 48.81 19.15Fiji 9.36 5.9 24.17 13.27 0.83

Source: Extracted from UN E government Survey 2008

Table-3: E- Government - Infrastructure Index 2008 Country Internet PC Cellular Main Telephone Broadband Infrastructure

Index Index Index Lines Index Index Index Papua New Guinea 0.021 0.073 0.006 0.011 0 0.0221Australia 0.845 0.848 0.639 0.506 0.604 0.6884Fiji 0.105 0.065 0.157 0.137 0.026 0.0982

Source: Extracted from UN E-government Survey 2008

Tables-2 and 3 reveal the survey results of the three countries viz., PNG, Australia and Fiji. It is observed from these two tables that PNG’s index is very lower level in the e government setup

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process. As such, it is necessary to enquire into the status of e-governance development in PNG to know the reasons for the low e-governance index for PNG.

4. Status of e-Governance Initiatives in PNG E-government has not been implemented completely in Papua New Guinea. The Government WAN (Gov Net) serves National Departments located only within Port Moresby, the capital city. The network is comprised of both point- to point copper links, and wireless spread spectrum links, leased telecom data lines and a microwave link. The main use of this network is for e-mail and limited Internet access. However, recently, technical discussions have been initiated and are ongoing between the Deputy Head of the Department of National Planning and the Government of the Republic of Korea, which proposed to assist Papua New Guinea in implementing e-government. The government of PNG enacted ICT policy and legislation in 2007 to provide all kind of ICT services in PNG.

5. Stages of Service Delivery - eGovernment Evolution The e- governance initiative should progress through the following stages as the discussed in the UN e governance report 2008. The discussion is given the status of PNG e-governance initiative on the each stage.

Stage I - Emerging: A government’s online presence is mainly comprised of a web page and/or an official website; links to ministries or departments of education, health, social welfare, labour and finance may/may not exist. Much of the information is static and there is little interaction with citizens. Governments around the world are fully cognizant of the benefits of employing ICTs for improving public sector management practices and relationships with internal and external stakeholders. In PNG the government enacted ICT policy in 2008. (http://knol.google.com). Many are seeking to harness this potential for further gains in service delivery, efficiency and transparency. To ensure better functioning, many governments have embarked upon strategies aimed at tapping new synergies between technology and development to find innovative solutions to government and governance. Recent evidence shows that in many developed countries, where most services are already online, citizens and businesses prefer to have both traditional and non-traditional channels of delivery at their disposal, depending on where and when they wish to access services and on the nature and type of service required.

Stage II - Enhanced: Governments provide more information on public policy and governance. They have created links to archived information that is easily accessible to citizens, as for instance, documents, forms, reports, laws and regulations, and newsletters. PNG government is still constructing its own web page of Pngonline.gov.pg.

Stage III - Interactive: Governments deliver online services such as downloadable forms for tax payments and applications for license renewals. In addition, the beginnings of an interactive portal or website with services to enhance the convenience of citizens are evident. Except e mail communication on isolated network system no any other coordination or collaborative data base developed or implemented in PNG.( Nalu,2007).

Stage IV - Transactional: Governments begin to transform themselves by introducing two-way interactions between ‘citizen and government’. .( Ndou,2004).It includes options for paying taxes, applying for ID cards, birth certificates, passports and license renewals, as well as other similar G to C interactions, and allows the citizen to access these services online 24/7. All transactions are conducted online. PNG government has yet to initiate this stage.

Stage V - Connected: Governments transform themselves into a connected entity that responds to the needs of its citizens by developing an integrated back office infrastructure. Governments must also ensure that their back office operations are seamless and integrated into one system that bridges the contents and data available at different sites. This is critical for any administrative and financial transaction over the Internet. This was reflected in the Survey, with a number of countries from Northern Europe having revamped their national and ministry websites to handle financial transactions over a secure network. Government of PNG has not yet reached this stage.

Table-4 provides the development stages of the e- governance setup of Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Australia in terms of percentage of utilization in 2008. Utilization is defined as services provided through e-governance as a percentage of the maximum services in a category. It is observed from this table that Australia and Fiji are leading in the region’s e- government service delivery.

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Table-4: Development stages of the e- governance setup in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Australia.

Stages of Percentage Utilization 2008 Service delivery PNG Australia Fiji

Emerging status 63% 88% 75% Enhanced status 9% 92% 35% Interactive status 10% 61% 35% Transactional status 0 45% 0 Connected status 0 70% 0 Total 8% 67% 24%

Source: Extracted from the UN report on e Government Survey 2008

Thus, it is clear from the discussion that PNG is lagging behind in building-up of e-governance infrastructure. The major issue in the e-capacity infrastructure building in any country is availability of competence human resources in the area of development and implementation of the ICT facilities. Table-5 depicts PNG is lagging behind Fiji and Australia in web measure index, infrastructure index and human capacity index. Table-6 indicates that the reasons for poor human capacity index are poor adult literacy rate, gross enrolment and education index.

Table-5: E-Government Readiness Data 2008 Country Web Infrastructure Human E-Government

Measure Index Capital Readiness Index Index Index Papua New Guinea 0.0870 0.0221 0.5180 0.2078 Australia 0.7525 0.6884 0.9933 0.8108 Fiji 0.2742 0.0982 0.8786 0.4156

Source: Extracted from UN E- government Survey 2009

Table-6: Education Index 2008

Country Adult Gross Education Literacy Enrolment Index

Papua New Guinea 57.30 40.72 0.52 Australia 99.00 100.00 0.99 Fiji 94.40 74.78 0.88

Source: Extracted from UN E government Survey 2008

Thus, PNG is facing challenges in building-up of ICT infrastructure including building human capacity for implementation of e-governance initiatives.

6. Suggestions The development of basic infrastructure to capture the advantages of new technologies and communications tools is essential for implementing ICT and e-business. Different access methods, such as remote access by cellular phones, satellite receivers, etc., need to be taken into consideration by the Government of PNG in order that all members of society can be served irrespective of their physical and financial capabilities. However, an ICT infrastructure does not consist simply of telecommunications and computer equipment. E-readiness and ICT literacy are also necessary in order for people to be able to use and benefit from e-business and e-government applications. Education, freedom and desire to access information are critical to e-governance and e-business effectiveness. Presumably, the higher the level of human capacity development, the more likely citizens will be inclined to accept and use e-business services.

Human competencies are catalyst for social, economic and business development of any country (Subbarao and Manohar, 2005). Building human competencies should begin at early stages from the

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formal education systematically with approved syllabus and practical component. (Lake, 2004). ICT is to be introduced as part of general educational programs. ICT should be part of the formal education subjects. Furthermore, such formal education can also be provided to those without access to formal education such as the aged and the poor segments of society. The following measures are suggested to improve human capacity to implement and use the e-governance initiatives.

• Encourage ICT training institutes by providing them with incentives, connecting them with international firms having similar objectives and involving them in national training requirements

• Encourage the certification of workforces on ICT products that are non-technical in nature but of general use for knowledge workers.

• Launch eLearning projects addressed at the PNG workforce that provide them with improved ICT and organizational skills.

• Identify and promote the use of ICT skills training on the web. • Define ICT literacy levels for various jobs allowing managers to develop their staff and

perform regular evaluations. • Career paths need to be streamlined to include growth in ICT skills. • Encourage academic institutions to cooperate with the ICT sector to ensure that the

educational programs provided by such institutions improve the ICT skills of various job types. • Ensure that the Ministry of Education coordinates with universities and the ICT sector when

developing its own ICT educational curricula. This would have a direct impact on the skills of future workforces.

• Encourage business organisations to train their workforces on ICT skills. This also requires ensuring that such organisations provide the necessary ICT infrastructure.

• Develop training programs for ICT skills throughout the public sector to understand the e-business and e-government applications

• Improve the availability of books that support ICT skills by encouraging technical book fairs, reduction of taxes on books and CDs.

7. Conclusion The discussion reveals that the current status of the e Governance initiatives, infrastructure and human capacity in PNG that compared with the global and regional setup is poor. The e-governance initiatives taken by the Government of PNG are quite inadequate. Added to this the human capacity in PNG is to be geared-up on a large scale to meet the implementation and usage needs of e-governance initiatives. Hence, it is suggested that the Government of PNG as well as all institutions concerned are required to take appropriate steps at the earliest to improve the infrastructure and human capacities in order to provide e-governance services to the people.

References ADB Institute, Country Summary Report 2005 Akram Najjar, InfoConsult, Beirut, Lebanon, Human Capacity Development and e-Government, Regional

Workshop on e-Government, Sana’a, Yemen, 1-3 December 2003 Blake Harris, E-governance, 2000 (http://www.iadb.org ) (Accessed on 12/03/2010). Shaun Lake, Strategies for Human Resource Development toward an e-Business Economy, Global Trade

Training (Pty) Ltd, 2004. Expert National Report on ICT policy phase 2 reforms, department of communication and information, 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_New_Guinea (Accessed on 12/06/2010) http://knol.google.com/k/jeremy/itc-and-the-digital-divide-in-papua-new/2v0wua2gsqawe/3 (Accessed on

15/03/2010). Nalu. M, (2007 November 30). The times they are a-chang in’, The National, News Paper, PNG. Pulapa Subba rao and Ponnusamy Manohar, 2005 Education is catalyst for economic development, Cairns,

Australia Press Release PI/1522 SAG/180, 2008, International Telecommunication Union Report UN Report on E- Government Survey, 2008 UNCTAD, e-business Survey, 2005 Valentina (Dardha) Ndou, Department of Business Administration, University of Shkoder, Albania e – government

for developing countries: opportunities and challenges 2004 Zhiyuan Fang, 2003 E-Government in Digital Era: Concept, Practice, and Development

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Björn Johansson holds a PhD in Information Systems Development from the Department of Management & Engineering at Linköping University. Currently he works as Associate Senior Lecturer at Department of Informatics, Lund University. Previously he worked as a Post Doc at the Center for Applied ICT at Copenhagen Business School. He is a member of the IFIP Working Groups IFIP 8.6 and IFIP 8.9. Miranda Kajtazi is a PhD candidate in Informatics, at the School of Computer Science, Physics and Mathematics, Linnaeus University in Sweden. She received a Master Degree in Computer Science from Växjö University and a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science from South East European University. She also worked in software engineering for industry. Ranjan Kini is a Professor of Information Systems at the School of Business, Indiana University Northwest, Gary, IN, USA. He teaches internationally, is an active member of several professional organizations. Kini has published over fifty papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. His current research interests are in Electronic and Mobile Commerce. Misoo Kwon Ph.D. Director, of IT Policy Planning & Evaluation Dept. National Information Society Agency(NIA) Professor, Graduate school of policy studies, Korea University. PM for Green IT National Strategy Development Project of Presidential Committee on Green Growth Expert Advisor of Korea Presidential Government Deregulation Committee Jenny Lagsten, PhD in Information Systems Development. Jenny is a Lecturer in Informatics at Swedish Business School at Örebro University, Sweden. Among the organizations that he has worked for are the Swedish Postal Service, the Swedish Employment Agency and the Swedish social welfare services. Luís Velez Lapão is Professor of Health Systems Management at IHMT of the New University of Lisbon and Senior Researcher at CINTESIS (Centre for Health Information Systems Research). Member of the International Medical Informatics Association (active participant on the WG10 - Health Information Systems) and Consultant of the European Commission for Health Information Technologies. Cristóbal López received the B.Tech. degree in telecommunications engineering from the E.T.S.I. Telecommunications, University of Málaga, Spain, in 2008 and he is currently working toward the M.S. degree in electrical systems for smart environments in University of Málaga. He works in the Research & Development Area at CITIC since 2007. Monika Magnusson is currently doing her postdoc at Karlstad University, Sweden. She holds a bachelor’s degree (1999) and a PhD (2007) in Information Systems, both from Karlstad University. Her primary research areas include the adoption of e-commerce, open source ERP’s and public e-services along with adoption and usage of IT in the retail industry. Paolo Magrassi has contributed to introduce the internet of things and geoweb concepts in the 1990’s and is the co-creator of the AlphaIC methodology for assessing the value of information technology investments. He is conducting research on collective intelligence and non-linear issues in the business world. Ponnusamy Manohar is currently engaged with School of Business Administration, University of Papua New Guinea as Head of Business Management Division. He has been in the academic for last 15 years. He has published business discipline textbooks and research papers in the international academic journal. He has presented many academic and research papers in international conferences. Panagiotis Manolitzas holds a Bachelor in Public Administration (specialization in Management Science) from the University of Athens and an MSc in Public Management (specialization in Management Science) from the University of Athens. Panagiotis has worked as Instructor at University of Athens. As of September 2005 he is laboratory instructor at Technological Educational Department of Piraeus, Department of Business Administration. He teaches courses in undergraduate level (Management Information Systems) while maintaining active links with the industry through consulting projects. He has written the book ‘Principles of Business Administration’. He is a Member of Hellenic Operational Research Society. Nenad Markovic is a professor at the Belgrade Business School, courses: ICT Strategy; Management Information Systems. M.A. studies finished on System Science and Control System. He has three ERP systems building and implementation experience. He has published four books on IT and a number of papers (12 of them are dealing with the IT-PMS relations). Ana Marques is pursuing her master degree in Statistics and Information Management from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Since her graduation in Statistics and Operational Research in 2003, she’s been

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