The great e-government giveaway

By James Smith | 12 August 2008 | Permanent link | 1 comment

It’s hard to take a government’s e-services seriously if the government in question doesn’t take them seriously either. The latest news across my desk is how Dubai’s e-government project is aiming to drum up citizen participation by dishing out freebies.

Now, maybe it’s because I never win anything in these kind of lucky draw competitions that I’m surprised and disappointed with this approach. Certainly I wouldn’t say no to a helicopter trip above Dubai, a three-night stay in 5-star hotel, and an assortment of “electronic and entertainment devices and more”. And I’m not picking on Dubai, because I am sure I recall Singapore doing something similar in the past - it may have been coffee vouchers or stored value cards for early e-filing of taxes.

Reading between the lines, these kind of giveaways occur when citizen participation rates are not what the agency in question would like them to be. And certainly I’m all for a bit of marketing now and then to educate citizens, businesses and visitors about a country’s online services. But particularly in Dubai’s case … these e-services aren’t new. They had about 1600 e-services when I started reporting on all this stuff five years ago.

So I think there’s something not quite right if after a long ‘settling-in’ period, citizen participation rates still require a “daily raffle of prizes” to drive traffic online.

What I take from this is that the authorities are haunted by a sizeable investment in e-services infrastructure that, judging by the response of those who live and work there, is surplus to requirements.

And that’s okay - because it’s a valuable lesson that civil servants should act less and listen more. If you can’t sell a service based on its convenience to the user - chucking a few nights stay in a posh hotel at random citizens won’t help you much either.

Though if you’re going to anyway … throw them my way!

Add your comment