‘eGovernment2 services will reduce government bureaucracy’ – Austin Gatt

Entitled the ‘Next generation eGovernment framework’, Transport and Communications Minister Austin Gatt today announced a new system that will revolutionise the way information is transferred between the public and government departments.

“eGov2 will be accessible to anyone, anywhere using any method of technology. Information will be accessed the way users want to see it. All services will be integrated in one place to reduce inconvenience,” Gatt said.

The new “more cleanly presented” portal will be common for all eGovernment services and will not only provide the customary online and form-filling services, but also track changes and progress of applications for licences or payments.

“Government departments are part of the same government and so should be a part of one service where the backend is operated by the government. This is the first step to eGov2 and apart from advancing in the IT sector, this will allow government bureaucracy to be drastically reduced,” Gatt said.

Chairman of the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) Claudio Grech said that after three years' development, the new version of eGov used original principles first used to create the original version.  

“We wanted to offer more services which were more sophisticated this time but we wanted the services to be more relevant to the users. We also emphasised simplicity as an important factor. It is not enough to have services available online if it is not easily accessed,” Grech said.

The new framework will allow all electronic forms to be personalised according to users using their eID provided by the government and will also save documents already uploaded if they may by required for another form filled.

All online forms will also include more information to ensure it is the right form for user needs and the system will also allow users to save their progress while completing eforms should there be time constraints or more information required.

Grech also said that the new system will allow different government departments to become independent from MITA by enabling information to be published by the departments themselves according to their needs.

‘Cross-border services’ is another service to be made available which will allow government services to be accessed by EU member states while allowing Maltese citizens to access the information of these EU governments.

“We have added 56 new services to the already existing 93 electronic services available on the system. More will be added as we go along according to the needs of the public but we are expecting to reach 400 available services in the next couple of years,” Grech said.

According to a survey conducted regarding the use of eGov services, Grech said that just over half of all households use and reuse the services mainly because of convenience, speed, no closing times or queues.

The Prime Minister Office’s Principal Permanent Secretary Godwin Grima welcomed the new system while adding that more needed to be done to increase the efficiency of the government.

“One of the directives to be implemented is that if a department requires a document which has already been provided to them or to another government body by the client, it is the department that will find that document and not the client. This is a public commitment and we will need constant monitoring to ensure the performance agreement is abided,” Grima said.