MALAYSIA’S GCIO SHARES NEW GOVT ICT MASTERPLAN
In 2020, Malaysia will become a ‘high-income nation’ that is both ‘inclusive and sustainable’, according to the vision laid out by the government.
Dato’ Dr Nor Aliah bt Mohd Zahri, the country’s Government Chief Information Officer, says that the new government ICT plan, which is currently being finalised, will play an indispensable role in achieving this vision.
Malaysia’s first public sector ICT plan, launched in 2003, was completed in 2010. Dr Nor Aliah is also the Deputy Director General (ICT) of Malaysia Administrative modernisation and management planning unit, a special agency affiliated to the Prime Minister’s Department.
Four strategic thrusts have been identified in order for the government to realise its vision for 2020. That includes: “1Malaysia, People First, Performance Now”; Government Transformation Programme (GTP); Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and the 10th Malaysia Plan.
Various programmes are developed to address the ICTrequirements for the government in the above-mentioned areas over the next five years.
The focus of GTP, reveals Dr Nor Aliah, is ‘deliver big results fast’. Three phases of implementation have been laid out: the first phase, started last year, will last until 2012; the second phase will last between 2012 and 2015, and the third one predicted to end in 2020. The programme focuses on six areas: reducing crime, fighting corruption, improving student outcome, raising living standards for low-income households, improving rural basic infrastructure and improving public transport. In the 10th Malaysia plan, budgets are allocated for government to implement the strategies that have been identified.
Looking at global trends, Dr Nor Aliah says that the challenges in Malaysia are also about sharing of information and services in order to achieve greater efficiency and improve citizen service delivery – goals specified in the 1Malaysia vision.
The public sector ICT blueprint, under which all agencies and departments will work towards the common goal, incorporates four key concepts: Information strategy which “enhances information sharing”, “ICT Governance”, “Managing Knowledge Effectively”, as well as “Strengthening the infrastructure architecture”.
For information architecture blueprint aims to achieve a whole-of-government by providing connected service delivery. The government will identify the business architecture components and map it into the information architecture components. The goal is to enhance public facing delivery channels, provide a common architecture standard for information sharing as well as enhance collaboration by identifying common, shareable and reusable information.
The phases will include building the foundation, achieving connected service delivery and finally seamless sharing of information by 2015.
In the area of governance, Dr Nor Aliah says of strengthening the governance structure is to “support and align with the national strategic priorities and initiatives by creating a more responsive governance environement to improve speed of decision-making and delivery”.
The strategy to build an informed knowledge environment includes the building of a Knowledge foundation programme, knowledge practitioner development programme as well as rewards & recognition programme. In addition to inculcating the culture of knowledge management, the government will also strengthen knowledge management initiative in the public sector through development of high impact knowledge management projects and intelligence hub programme. The objective is for an “Existence of a Centralized Knowledge Management Hub for the public sector” in five years’ time.
Dr Nor Aliah highlights the concern that currently “public sector ICT infrastructures are currently not fully optimised due to redundancies and inefficiencies resulting from disparate ICT infrastructure”. To increase the productivity, the government plans to consolidate public sector network, data centres & disaster recovery centres, establish public sector cloud computing infrastructure, standardise end user computing infrastructure, develop common security infrastructure, deploy mobile computing solutions and increase the usage of open source applications.
The public sector ICT framework has been developed, which include ICT governance and change management components.
“In many areas, the government services are available but the usage rate is very low,” says Dr Nor Aliah, who adds that one of the objectives is to make sure more people use government services. Seven strategic objectives have been identified as part of the business strategy plan; these include streamlining ICT architecture; consolidating ICToperations; intensifying inter-agency collaboration; rationalising ICT governance structures; attracting, developing and retaining top talent in the public service; strengthening the performance culture and fostering knowledge culture.
Numerous KPIs have been set in the areas including online services, paperless government, sharing of information and shared services. “All these contribute to the framework of our public sector ICT plan,” says Dr Nor Aliah.
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