State misses out on benefits of sharing information


Published on 02/06/2009

By Macharia Kamau

The uptake of technology has improved delivery of some Government services yet the full benefits of information and communications technology (ICT) have not been exploited.

Indeed, full deployment of ICT government functions would improve service delivery to the public by reducing transaction time.

"Among the obstacles in the uptake of ICT include legal framework, human resource capacity and communications infrastructure," Mr Henry Njoroge, Open View Business Systems managing director.

Information and Communications PS Bitange Ndemo has in the past conceded that the Government still lags behind in exploiting technology and it needs to keep pace with the private sector.

resources wastage

Digitisation of records and transactions would make Government officers accountable, help fight corruption and minimise wastage of resources.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga (second right) and Lands Minister James Orengo (right) and other government officials when they toured the ministry’s headquarters to inspect archiving of land records. The Government is yet to exploit the benefits of technology in its operations.

A shared services platform has been touted as an ideal solution for the government to share information among its departments and also with the public.

"Shared services will improve operations while streamlining accesses to Government resources, information and systems by the public," said Njoroge. Shared services is a platform on which certain critical systems and information are stored in a centralised or distributed in servers.

Public service centres such as police stations, hospitals, public procurement and information dissemination can run more efficiently on a shared services platform.

The shared services concept has in the past been applied in companies to connect branches.

It is, however, being employed beyond one company to other companies that need to share information.

Njoroge says the objective of shared services is convergence and streamlining of an organisation’s functions to ensure that they deliver services effectively and efficiently.

operating costs

The concept has been extended to users outside an organisation such though networking

The technology also involves centralising of back office functions such as human resource and finance departments to bring down operating costs.

"Shared services enables appreciation of economies of scale and possible create synergies," said Njoroge.

 

 

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