The Romanian E-Government Implementation Started Early 2000

E-government implementation in Romania. From national success to international example

Ovidiu Stoica[1]

Abstract

The Romanian e-government implementation started early 2000. From this point of view, it is far from its beginning and could be expected to see important progresses. Taking into consideration the several international awards and e-government projects considered as good practices at European level, it is encouraging from the perspective of evaluating the possibilities to transfer the expertise to another country or at least to become “a study case”.

Having this in mind, could be surprising to find difficult to select the best e-government projects that deserve to compete in a challenge for an e-Government Learning Platform.

After surveying the e-government applications already developed in Romania, the first criteria in our selection is to identify those e-government applications awarded at international level.

The second criteria is to evaluate their impact at national level – i.e. reducing bureaucracy, reducing corruption, reducing expenses, increasing citizen (user) satisfaction, increasing e-government’s and ICT in public administration’s visibility etc.

The third selection criteria applied is the possibility to transfer it, to implement it in another country.

Trying to apply the common framework proposed, we will try to argue in favour of the best e-government application developed and used in Romania, based on our perspective but also starting from the public perception.

1. Introduction

Learning from others’ experience in e-government is nowadays a necessity. The importance of knowledge/experience transfer is clearly proved taking into consideration studies showing thatalmost half of the e-government implemented projects are not a real success. Thus, the role of the best practices as an example for avoiding the others’ mistakes and avoid spending time and recoursesbecomes more important. In fact, in a time of economic crisis, when reconsidering priorities, with limited financial support, this approach is more than welcomed.

2. Possible evaluation criteria for selecting the best e-government applications at national level

The question is how to select an e-government project that could become an (international) example? From a subjective perspective, we propose the following characteristics of a “candidate” project:

- to have deep impact at national level (among the most used e-government applications in the country);

- being possible to copy (implementing elsewhere);

- being verified (implemented/functional/successful project, not a pilot project;

- being original (not to be compulsory to implement for the EU countries within eEurope).

However, it appears a dilemma, if only e-government projects or any e-project / e-content (including e-democracy projects or e-learning projects) should be selected and if the analysis must be separated for the G2G, G2B, G2C projects? From our point of view, the main focus should be on e-government projects, but not limited at a certain category (G2G, G2B, G2C).

Others criteria to select among the main functional e-government applications, could be:

- the highest level of savings resulted through its use (reducing expenses),mainly for the public institution/government, but also from the point of view of the citizen or the business environment, depending on its type (G2G, G2C or G2B);

- being winner on international competition awards or being appreciated as best practice at European level;

- bringing collateral advantages (like achieving IT skills for the users, supposing previous improving endowment or supposing e-signature, all these being good prerequisites for other e-government application uses);

- reducing bureaucracy;

- reducing corruption;

- increasing citizen (user) satisfaction;

- increasing e-government’s and ICT’visibility in public administration.

A classification of e-government projects, targeting the selection of “models”, could be:

a) from the point of view of functionality/implementation: degree/ readiness:

1. implemented projects;

2. pilot projects;

3. abandoned pilot projects;

b) from the point of view of success in implementation:

1. successful projects;

2. failed projects;

3. new projects (unverified);

c) awarded projects:

1. internationally awarded projects;

2. considered best practices/models at national level;

Thus, we should take into consideration only the main e-government applications, implemented projects, most relevant, successful and awarded ones,with higher impact,among the proposed e-government projects in the intent to create a learning platform with best cases in e-government at European level.On the other hand, maybe could be more adequate to analyze separately G2C and G2B applications, due to their different impact.

3. Evaluation of Romanian e-government projects from the point of view of e-learning platform

The Romanian e-government implementation started early 2000. From this point of view, it is far from its beginning and could be expected to see important progresses. Taking into consideration the several international awards and e-government projects considered as good practices at European level, it is encouraging from the perspective of evaluating the possibilities to transfer the expertise to another country, or at least to become “a study case”.

Among the well-known e-government applications fully functional in Romania, we could identify more than one that could be interesting and also were recognised at international level.

a) e-Procurement in Romania: from national success to international example

The Electronic System for Public Acquisitions e-Procurement (ESPP - e-procurement) it is the most successful Romanian e-Government project from the point of view of financial impact and number of users. Imposed by the law, the use of e-procurements by some public institutions in specific conditions/for certain category of products, forced the companies interested to win/obtain public contracts to have (if not have it before) computers, Internet connection, IT skills (trained staff), e-signature etc. Also, the public institutions and certain category of government companies targeted by the legislation, were forced (obliged by the law) to have Internet connections, IT skills, computers, e-signature etc. Those knowledge and hardware can be used also for other e-government applications i.e. the next e-government applications implemented will suppose less investments or already will have a better and more favourable environment to develop.

In 2003, the European Commissioner Erkki Liikanen appreciated the ESPP and catalogued it as an example of good practice; in 2004 the Bulgarian government and in 2009 the Georgia government were interested to implement the model. All these are proves of its international recognition.

According to official statistics, between March 2002 and October 2006, in the 650,000 auctions realised, the Romanian state obtained savings over 178 millions of EUR.

E-procurement is not a Romanian invention. In fact its implementation is recommended and encouraged by the European Union; so, according to our previous criteria, it is not an eligible project. Several EU countries already had it functional. However, its implementation in Romania proves that it can be realised in a short time, that could be successful and could be applied in other countries and even generalised at least at the EU level.

b. The Educational Informatised Program (AEL), an educational assistant for highschools

AEL represents a computer assisted learning system and thus not eligible, according to our previous criteria - targeting e-government projects. However, this is a very successful e-project that obtained several international recognitions, such as:

- in 2005, the eEurope Awards for eGovernment, in Manchester;

- also in 2005: the 1st place in the World Summit Awardfor Information Society, held in Tunis in the eLearningsection;

- in 2007 it was nominated in the International Project Excellence Awards2007 – among the six best world projects;

- in February 2008, in the European IT Excellence Awards 2008, category Independent Software Vendors (ISV) - Vertical Market, was againg among the best applications.

In fact, behind this software, there is a national governmental program, started in 2001, involving in time more than 3,000,000 pupils and 75,000 teachers as users, with over 4800 schools involved and more than 100 millions of euro financial effort only in the period 2001-2005. Due to this consistent efforts, were created over 1700 interactive lessons in 14 fields (math, physics, informatics, history, biology, geography, grammar, chemistry etc.), in an intent in collaboration with SIVECO, IBM, HP and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. From this point of view, also taking into account its contribution in reducing the digital divide, it represents a reference point.

c. Tax payment by electronic means (local) e-tax;

Conceived in order to facilitate for the citizens the payment of local taxes, it is theoretically fully functional in all the municipalities since 2003. However, due to its uncreative design, it is not a real success; maybe even more, could be considered a failure example, taking into account the small number of users (in some municipalities, after six years of functioning, less that 0.1% of the population uses it).

d. The Romanian e-government portal good start

The Romanian e-government “one-stop shopping” concept,unfortunately not yet very complex, is even disappointing now in content, but promising that could be more interesting, if completely functioning. As a recognition of its potential, at the World Summit Award in Geneva, in 2003, it was selected among the first 5 e-government projects at the world level, arguing that the “Romanian e-Government Gateway” is the easy to use central access point to on-line public information and e-services that facilitates a wide range of electronic transactions between citizens, businesses and public administration. From the point of view of the e-learning platform, it is not a good candidate, also because the idea of e-government portals is very popular in the European Union.

e. The national computerized highschool/vocational school admission and distribution (ADLIC) represents the IT based system used in Romania since 2001, on national scale, for centralizing the 8th grade final results and distributing the graduates in high-schools and vocational schools.

As a recognition of its efficiency, in November 2001ADLIC received the "Best Practice" distinction from the European Comission, during the conference "From policy to practice", organized in Brussels.

The results in using the application are impressive:

- the 148,905 candidates were distributed in less than two minutes;

- the number of the candidates that were not distributed (because they did not fill in enough options in the ADLIC registration forms) was 271, meaning 0.18% of the candidates);

- almost 60% of the candidates were declared "admitted" into the high school or vocational school that was their first choice;

- 80% of candidates admitted into a school that was in their top three options.

The public interest in the results published on the web is also suggestive:

- 450,000 unique visitors in a week;

- 220,000 unique visitors on the first day;

- 14 millions posted reports;

- 850,000 searches and queries.

-with over 100,000 registered users, the portal has reached 2ndposition in the top of the most visited sites in Romania.

- the over 100,000 registered users on the forum of the SEI portal have posted more than 585,500 messages, with some moments when there were simultaneously over 4,700 users on the discussions forum.

As arguments for sustaining this application for the e-learning platform are: it is original, successful, continues to be used since 2001, it is considered best practice at European level and could be transferred to a different country. However, not in every country there is an admission process for the highschools and the criteria selection could be improved; but, this constrains we consider that it not alter the value of the application.

4. Conclusions

Implementing e-government in a country could be compared, from a certain point of view with a puzzle; each country must find the most appropriate place for a piece and the right momentum for its implementation. More, some e-government applications can bring a synergic effect, becoming good premises for implementing other e-applications.

Probably, it could be identified a series of punctual e-government applications that could be developed autonomously and could bring after that ascale effect.

For example, it could be more difficult and adventurous, if not impossible, to intent to implement in an incipient stage of e-government in a country, an e-government portal. (In the Romanian case for example, the portal that received the appreciation of best practice at international level in 2005 was not then functional completely and even now, several years after that, the progress is minor).

Awarding a good idea is not the same with awarding a fully functional project. In our opinion e-government is an ensemble of good and functional e-government applications that at a certain moment will be interconnected, but until then could and will function autonomously. All those success stories will encourage in the same time government (G), business (B) and citizens (C) in implementing and using it, starting in the creation of fully functional G2G, G2B and G2C e-government applications.

Would be higher impact if it could be more projects G2C (higher scale impact). The national strategy must take into consideration all those strong and weak points when choosing priorities.It is easier, with more impact and more successful, in our opinion, to implement individual high level projects, already verified, and considered examples of good practice at international level. From our point of view, the Romanian e-procurement implementation could be a good and encouraging example for less developed countries and could be transferred. It could function autonomously and could bring important savings both for the national budget and for the public institutions. But, as an original project, a more punctual one, the best example we consider it is the national computerized highschool/vocational school admission and distributionapplication.

References

1. Remes, Michael, Romanian national mapping report, CEEC-IST-NET, 2006,
2. Şandor, Sorin Dan, Digital Divide and E-Government in Romaniaunpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN023451.pdf;
3. Sumanariu, Sevil, Evaluarea stadiului informatizarii administratiei publice locale, ANIAP, 2007;
4. ***, e-Government in Romania, IDABC eGovernment Factsheets, September 2006,
5. ***, The Government’s Strategy Concerning The National Action Plan e–Administration, Bucharest – 2001;
6. ***, The Integrated Informatical System For The Management Of The Activities Of The BucharestMunicipality -Technical Project;
7. ***, United Nations e-Government Survey 2008. From e-Government to Connected Governance, United Nations, New York, 2008;

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[1] Full professor,Ph.D., “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania