Malaysia’s future, our competitiveness, prosperity and place in the world, will be determined by the ability of all Malaysians to take a quantum leap into the Information Age.
In the old economy, for instance, natural resources and physical infrastructure were the decisive factors for a nation’s competitiveness. In the new global economy, knowledge is the key resource and the quality of a nation’s workforce is critical to ensure competitiveness.
If Malaysia is to become a truly developed and world-class nation, Malaysia must be in the very forefront of the Information Technology and the Information Superhighway by achieving two objectives: Firstly, that Malaysia joins the ranks of the “Information rich” nations in the world; and secondly, that there is no division of the “information-rich” and the “information-poor” among Malaysians.
Malaysia has a long way to go to join the ranks of the “Information-rich” nations and an even longer way to go to ensure that there is no division between the “information-rich” and the “information-poor” among Malaysians.
At the beginning of this month, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed announced the details of Malaysia’s ambitious plan for a IT breakthrough by way of the 15km by 50 km Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) as multimedia is undoubtedly the future mode of communications because of the increasing convergence of telecommunications, broadcasting and computing.
Unfortunately, the impact the Prime Minister had made with his announcement of the collection of seven flagship applications that will be launched to kick off the MSC - electronic government, telemedicine, research and development cluster, worldwide manufacturing web, borderless marketing centre, multimedia funds haven and the world’s first multipurpose smart card - was shattered when peninsular Malaysia was plunged into darkness in the second nationwide power blackout in four years!
The August 3 blackout is not a different issue but will directly affect Malaysia’s success to leapfrog into the Information Era, as one of its prerequisites is a world-class supporting infrastructure especially in the national energy sector.
It is important however that Malaysians should be able to distinguish between hype and reality in the country’s effort to join the Information Era. For instance, the Prime Minister’s speech at the Multimedia Asia 96 Conference and Exposition was given newspaper headlines like: “Dr.M: We’ll be pioneer in electronic government” when the MSC becomes a reality by year 2000.
How can we claim to be a pioneer in electronic government in the year 2000 when there is not yet a single government transaction or service which could be conducted directly on line, while other countries have already introduced electronic government services to their citizens?
In Australia, for instance, the Taxation Office receives more than six million taxation returns each year by electronic lodgment, guaranteeing speedy processing. The Health Insurance Commission has an electronic Mediclaims system, providing improved services to Medicare clients with a fast turnaround of claims, 24 hours availability seven days a week and payment by electronic funds transfer. Australian laws and court judgments can be accessed on the Internet.
In our neighbouring island state, sometime in 1998, Singaporeans will be able to access on a personal computer a wide range of interactive services where, with a click of the mouse, residents would be able to hold an interactive dialogue with a government official, pay their bills, sew up a business deal, order groceries or scour electronic libraries all from their homes.
To initiate an electronic government, Dr. Mahathir said that as a start, by 1998, the Prime Minister’s Office would be paperless when it moves to Putrajaya, expressing the hope that this would encourage Ministries to make themselves paperless as they will need to interact with the Prime Minister’s Department.
Such a hope appears to be quite a fragile basis to pioneer electronic government in the world. Why can’t the government set the target that all Ministries should become paperless by the year 2,000?
In any event, even if the government in Putra Jaya becomes paperless, there will only be an electronic government in the MSC, but not in the whole country.
If Malaysia is to avoid the new division between the “information-rich” and the “information-poor”, then Malaysians throughout the country, and not just the 150,000 peolple in the MSC, must be prepared for the coming information era.
Instead of the hyperbole of talking about being a “pioneer of electronic goverment”, Malaysian leaders should be more level-headed to plan to be among the world leaders in government administration and in the provision of affordable, equitable and accessible governmernt information and services.
It is true that more and more Ministries and government departments have gone online with their Homepages, but there is hardly anyone which provides online services or genuine interactive communication.
Many of these government homepages have been put up for prestige purposes or just to avoid criticism that they have not kept abreast with the developments of the Information Technology.
Several of the state governments which have spent extraordinary amounts of money to put their homepages belong to this category. There has been a lot of publicity, for instance, about the Perak State Government homepage but it has not been possible to access its website through its URL: http://www.perak.gov.my despite my trying in the last three days, including early this morning.
The Parliament homepage is another example. During the debate on the Seventh Malaysia Plan on May 7, I referred to my Parliamentary speech on the Royal Address two-and-a-half months earlier in March proposing a Parliamentary Homepage and the establishment of a Parliamentary Committee on IT so that Parliament could set an example to raise public awareness of the benefits of IT and to contribute towards promoting computer literacy in Malaysia, but which had fallen on deaf ears.
In reiterating my proposal that Parliament should go onto the Net to provide public electronic access to parliamentary materials, I said it would be very out-of-place and even incongruous to be debating in the Dewan Rakyat on the importance fo placing Malaysia in the forefront of the Information Superhighway and the Vision of a Knowledge Society when Parliament seemed so determined to be IT-illiterate and preferred to remain in the pre-IT era.
I said that if Parliament was not prepared to “bestir from its pre-IT stupor, then it will be the shame of the nation in wanting to continue to be a IT `dinosaur’ while the country is preparing to enter the Information Age”.
Later the same month, without any advance notice, MPs were informed of a ceremony to launch the Parliament Homepage. MPs were not consulted or asked to give ideas about the contents of the Parliament Homepage, to make it the pride not only of Parliament but of the country on the World Wide Web.
Three months have passed, and the Parliament Homepage is “still under construction” in many sections. Anyone who clicks on the “English language” link on the main page would be told “ 404 Not Found”!
The Parliament Homepage is a most unimaginative and uninspiring product - which was created not to provide electronic access to Malaysians and others outside the country to Parliamentary information but with a pre-Net mentality soley to silence criticism that Parliament does not have a Homepage!
There is a need for all Malaysians to recognise that Malaysia is still lagging behind in Information Technology, that we have still a long way to catch up if we are to be a leader in Information Technology. To do so, we must build a world-class communications network to transform Malaysia into an Information Society, with one of the highest take-up rates of new technologies in international comparisons, as well as world-ranking positions whether in users per head of the Internet or per capita ownership of personal computers.
It should be a matter of national concern that there has been a sharp drop in the number of Malaysians getting onto the Net. In April this year, the Mimos Director-General, Tengku Mohd. Azzman Shariffadeen,said he expected 150,000 Internet subscribers in Malaysia by the end of the year. However, this estimate has now been slashed to 100,000 Internet subscribers in Malaysia by the end of the year. The exorbitant increase in Telekom rates as well as poor Telekom services, with Internet lines congested and clogged, had acted as a dampener on the Internet `fever’ in the country - and this is clearly a setback for the race to get Malaysia into the Information Society.
Last month, Utusan Malaysia launched a “Sebuah computer setiap rumah” campaign. I fully agree with the Utusan Malaysia editorial when it explained why it was launching the campaign to raise computer consciousness among Malaysians:
“Komputer tidak sepatutnya dianggap sebagai peralatan mewah. Atau barang mainan untuk orang kaya sahaja. Komputer harus menjadi satu lagi barangan perlu di rumah, saperti juga setiap rumah moden mempunyai set TV, peti sejuk, radio dan lain lain.”
Utusan Malaysia’s “Sebuah computer setiap rumah” campaign is most far-sighted and should be emulated by all other mass media as part of a concerted national campaign to catapult Malaysians into the Information Age.
At opening of DAP Selangor Convention on 25th August 1996
HOMEPAGE ||
About Us |
Bulletin |
Parliament |
Policy Document |
Cybercafe |
Join Us |
.