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Staff Reporter
Koreans have been praised worldwide for their passion and expertise in developing Web portals for citizen services under the "e-government" project.
While the system has been getting rave reviews abroad, particularly from the U.N., citizens here are not so convinced.
A recent U.N. report placed Korea first among 192 member states in e-Government Readiness.
Korea has developed more than 150 Web sites, but their usefulness is increasingly being called into question, except for a few select sites that have actual relevance to citizens' lives, such as the online tax service (www.hometax.go.kr).
A recent report found that 73 percent of Koreans were aware of e-government services but only 47 percent actually used them.
Only about 30 percent of 5 million required documentation, such as birth or residential certificates, have been processed online.
The figure is quite low, when considering that Korea has been known to be one of the most wired countries in the world. About 85 percent of households have access to a fixed line broadband connection.
The underutilization of e-government Web sites is in part attributed to the complicated procedures people have to go through to access the services.
For instance, logging onto www.minwon.go.kr, a signature electronic petition portal for processing documents, puts the user through a cumbersome sign-up process.
Also, the site is basically useless unless the person has a certified online banking identification, making it difficult for older citizens to benefit from the services.
This Web site was originally accessible at www.G4C.go.kr, meaning "Government for Citizen" (G4C).
However, just five years after its creation, the Lee Myung-bak administration recently changed its domain, leaving many citizens confused.
Experts and citizens say that such inconsistent management has made it even harder for the services to gain wider public recognition.
Besides inconvenience, lack of promotion and inconsistent management, the e-government portals have also been overlapping.
A recent report from the Board of Audit and Inspection underlined that "ministries are developing similar systems, leading to a waste of taxpayers' money."
The Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) recently developed a new one-stop electronic civil petition portal at www.korea.go.kr, but its functions are quite similar to the exiting G4C.
Rather than placing more priority on domestic PR, the authorities have been more eager to promote Korea's e-government model for export.
"We will use this opportunity to increase international cooperation in the area of informatization and seek to promote our e-government model worldwide," a top ministry official said in a briefing to introduce the latest UN e-government survey results.
Korea will hold a ministerial summit on e-government in October in Seoul, with participation from the U.S., Australia, England, New Zealand and France, among others that have been ranked at the top of UN e-government surveys.
The National Information Society Agency (NIA) said the event, which precedes the G-20 Summit in November, will be a good opportunity to increase cooperation in e-government development.
The UN has been generous in the assessment of the nation's efforts in the digitalization of administrative work procedures and citizen services through IT applications.
Its Global e-Government Survey is a biannual comparative report that has evaluated the e-government level of the 192 UN member states since 2002. In 2009, Korea jumped to the top after being previously ranked 6th in e-Government Readiness.
Some developing countries have shown interest in adopting Korea's e-government projects.
According to a ministry survey of 22,000 people, the G4C was selected as the most popular Web site. A G4B (government for business) is also available for businesspeople.
Online tax services at yesone.go.kr and hometax.go.kr were also found useful.
Users of e-government portals were also positive about epeople.go.kr, run by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, for collecting citizen complaints.
jhdo@koreatimes.co.kr
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