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Minister, Chairman of Government Office Mai Tien Dung

The policy of building e-Government has been planned for many years, could you talk about achievements and shortcomings that need to be removed in the future?

Minister Mai Tien Dung:

The policy of building e-Government has been developing since 2000, and after 18 years we have obtained many achievements and created important changes in the IT application in administrative agencies. Currently, public administrative service centers in 39 provinces and cities have been established. E-data of Tax, Customs, Insurance and Health agencies have been available. I think this is a new and very important task. Initially, we also have known the fundamental tasks such as: Infrastructure, connection of agencies from the central to local levels ... However, despite 18 years of building e-government, I frankly recognize that many shortcomings still exist. Firstly, regarding the institutional matters, we have not issued regulations on connection and exchange of information among the State administration agencies, regulations on personal information security, and have not developed the e-Government’s data, such as the National Population and Land Database. Although we have already established some data, but insufficiently. The most fundamental and crucial foundation is missing, there is no infrastructure to ensure the absolute safety of data.

In September 2018, the Prime Minister established the National e-Government Committee, with the Prime Minister's determination for building an e-Government towards a digital economy and society. The objective is to build the foundation of a system of legal documents regulating the connection and exchange of information among the State management agencies; for information security, identification and storage of e-documents, issuance of certificate number and digitization of documents ... We must do this to meet requirements, especially for the effective development of foundation data. The Prime Minister is also requesting agencies to effectively implement the national database for e-Government.

But the most important task in the Prime Minister’s direction is to serve the people and businesses. So we must provide public services to the people and businesses. And it is very important that if e-data and documents from the national data centers, public service centers in provinces, localities, ministries and branches are transparent, we will shorten the time and cost for people and businesses in carrying out administrative procedures, and prevent troubles, harassment... As per General Secretary, State President Nguyen Phu Trong and National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan stated, we must reform effectively and tackle endemic corruption.

The e-Government model has been deployed in many developed countries in the world. Which country's model do we study, and what are the benefits to the people?

Minister Mai Tien Dung:

I think that firstly, we need to focus on satisfying the demand of people and businesses, such as with the connection of National Single Window, ASEAN Single Window in Customs clearance; or with the establishment of public administration centers in the provinces, localities and cities to provide public services for people and businesses. Thus, people do not have to carry out procedures at administrative agencies and directly meet officers performing public services; they can declare and update information anywhere.

We learned from experiences in the Russian Federation, that previously had established 5,000 public administrative centers, and now reduced to 127 centers, with only 60 officers working in each center, and meanwhile, the number of services provided to people is huge, accounting for 99% of procedures processed via public services. If we do this, we will save State budget expenditure, because it will reduce the apparatus and promote IT application, saving time and cost for people and businesses. Especially, creating a transparent environment for people to monitor and assess the public duty performance at state management agencies.

Also from experience and actual knowledge, we recognize difficulties and demands of people and businesses, thereby, we have given good advice to the Prime Minister in order to create a single connection infrastructure for preventing the situation that each locality and each sector has its own software, which cannot be connected and shared, causing wastefulness.

Could you analyze the operational mechanism to promote e-Government? And the progress of deployment in the coming time?

Minister Mai Tien Dung:

The mechanism to promote e-Government must be based on enterprises, and the key enterprises are state-owned enterprises in telecommunications, which will be in charge of advising the Prime Minister and the Government in deployment; the Government office and State management agencies will advise for the building of specific projects. The view of the Government Office is to use the mechanism that the enterprise is an investor, and the State shall be the sublessor, instead of project doer as in previous years. From the reform ideology and the state management reform, software enterprises will concretize those goals. To this end, it is necessary to build an overall e-Government architecture framework for ministries, sectors and localities.

PM urges stronger efforts to build e-Government The Government is urging ministries, sectors and localities to accelerate the development and application of information technology ...

In 2019, besides deploying the improvement for institutions, when applying software, the State management agencies and enterprises need to ensure the connection for sharing information. For establishing an e-Government architecture framework, currently, this task is being assigned to the Ministry of Information and Communications by the Prime Minister, for creating a national inter-document system to ensure absolute safety. Accordingly, continuously building reform projects, towards a paperless Government, reducing meetings and reports. Encouraging and requesting localities to establish public service centers is very important, because it is necessary to build a national data center in parallel with the security mechanism, as currently, data is scattered and managed by many agencies.

Sincerely, thank you Minister!