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Bandar Seri Begawan – February 13, 2007 –

OUTDATED laws, rules and regulations in Brunei Darussalam may be rewritten or amended to keep track with technological advances, the Acting Minister of Communications yesterday said.

Dato Paduka Hj Yusof Hj Abd Hamid said the country's electronic-government initiative should be viewed as a "change management" programme that requires a change in mindset and the traditional way of how things are done.

"Various steps on the process of delivering a more efficient service, must be reengineered and not just merely automated," the minister told participants at a seminar jointly organised by BAG Networks, Accenture and Oracle.

He said the successful implementation of Brunei's e-government programme "would revolutionise the way government is serving the nation and the public".

"Adequate human capacity planning besides physical infrastructural development is crucial in ensuring the success of the e-government project," he said.

He said the definition of success should be expanded in determining the government's ability to provide sufficiently trained locals who can operate, manage and take over the systems.

New methods of planning for acquiring and developing workforces should be further sought to be more knowledgeable and productive, he said.

Dato Hj Yusoff also stressed that strategic partnerships with long-term goals should be emphasised, rather than simple supplier-client relationship between the government and system vendors.

The timing of completion is critical in ensuring the successful implementation of e-government projects, so that the nation would move towards the so-called information age, he said.

"An IT project such as the e-government can enable this process reengineering, resulting in a much faster and efficient delivery of services at possibly lower transaction costs."

"The huge amount of money invested must not go wasted," the minister added.

He stressed that government departments and agencies should closely work together in deciding what technologies are needed based on the government's requirements and ways they can fully utilise the technologies.

"We must ensure that applications are indeed relevant to our real needs before they are even purchased," he said.

Meanwhile, Md Shakharulain Md Thani, general manager of BAG Networks, told The Brunei Times that the seminar is a "marketing programme to share their partners' experiences in enterprise systems and how it can be applied to the government".

Enterprise resource systems is an integrated application used to achieve a similar flow of work processes within the organisation and it is mainly used in the private sector, said Md Shakharulain.

Brunei Darussalam sees information and communications technology as a new growth engine to enhance human capital development, produce more local workforce that is willing and able to move forward as well as leveraging in digital assets.

David Abberton, executive partner of Accenture said that research findings have shown that the implementation of enterprise systems has resulted in sustained value for all organisations.

"Enterprise systems are helping organisations to achieve higher levels of performance and improve business results to better management decision making," the executive said in his presentation.

BAG Networks is a joint venture between Brunei's government and Accenture to provide IT and business solutions and services.

The seminar took place at the Orchid Garden Hotel in Berakas.