E-Government in Malaysia: Its Implementation so far and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

What is E-Government? Does Malaysia implement this technology around the states? What are the citizen’s adoption strategies? Most of the people are still in doubt of what E-Government is, well, let me explain what actually it is.

E-Government actually refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for switching over the information, offering services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. It may be applied by legislature, judiciary, or administration, in the sense to improve the delivery of public services, the internal efficiency, or processes of democratic governance.

The E-Government systems that have been implemented in Malaysia so far include electronic engagement, and electronic consultation. E- Engagement is winning the public in the policy process by the use of electronic networks whereas E-Consultation refers to communication between public servants and the citizenry and interest groups. Besides, E-Controllership which consists of the potential to manage the cost, performance and services of an organization electronically is included in the E-Government systems too.

The Malaysian citizens can renew their driving license as well as road tax through the E-Government site. In addition, E-Government provides information of education, employment, travel and transport, legal matters, social welfare and community, health and other services for the Malaysian citizens. They can gather the information of what they wish to know anytime, anywhere from the E-Government site.

Although the implementations of E-Government services do bring a lot of convenience to the citizens, there are some barriers toward the adoption of these services, for example, technology and security barrier. In order to gain the confidence of the citizens on the services provided, the Government should implement a stable and better technical infrastructure to reduce the technology and security risks expose to the citizens.