E-government – slow but inglorious

In our country, this is the third government in a row committed to building a digital administration. Over 250 million euros have been "spended", and as a result of this investment, the number of working online services offered can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Kiril Mirchev

Each of us has had contact with the administration and has spent, at best, about an hour in front of a counter for a basic signature certification, document verification, certificate from a given register or filing a tax return. The coveted form or document "walks" around neighboring offices for an "expert" assessment, while we wait in line and waste valuable time.

Well, all this would not be happening to us if the entire public administration were united in a single electronic environment, with 24-hour access to information. This would save a lot of nerves for citizens and businesses and at the same time would optimize the state administration sector, reducing the bloated staff of officials.

What is e-government?

Generally speaking, the concept of electronic government (EG) or e-governance is related to the idea of providing quality, comprehensive and equitable administrative services to citizens and businesses by central and local government bodies at any time, from any place. Along with administrative services, it also includes other opportunities such as exercising the right to vote, access to justice, healthcare, e-school, e-police, banking through the use of information and communication technologies. The idea is simple: people receive the services they need with a minimum of cost, time and bureaucracy. The expected benefits of the creation and operation of the EEG are almost innumerable, but here are the most key ones:

• more democracy through a better connection between citizens and the state;
• more transparency through the development of responsible state administration;
• a smaller number, but at the same time more qualified, civil servants;
• lower costs and higher efficiency in the work of state administration
• a factor for strengthening the knowledge economy;

In our country, the third government in a row is engaged in building a digital administration. Over 250 million euros have been "exploited" (as if an information system, not an oil pipeline, is being built), and as a result of this investment, the number of working online services offered can be counted on the fingers. For example, we can check our accounts in the National Revenue Agency, the National Social Security Institute, the Commercial Register, and in some municipal administrations. We can also change our permanent or current address online, but only if we live in Burgas or in the "Triaditsa" and "Slatina" metropolitan areas. Do you have a ship? If you do, you can register a vessel in the ship register. All useful things. However, we cannot receive elementary things such as an electronic prescription from a general practitioner, a criminal record certificate, or a duplicate of a birth certificate. Just for comparison - in a small and cold Estonia, about 700 electronic administrative services operate.

Why can't we do it?

Currently, each ministry spends money from the budget on the development of information services. However, the key coordination and connectivity between them is missing. Instead of entering personal data once in one of the public institutions and their subsequent use by all the others for the needs of the service, citizens and legal entities are forced to fill out suspiciously similar, but supposedly different, forms repeatedly. Why do others succeed, while we are always stuck in the same place?

The difference is, perhaps, in the mentality of Bulgarian politicians and their Northern European colleagues. About 10 years ago, the latter became concerned about the Estonian taxpayers who pay their salaries and those of the administration, and set about looking for a working solution to the cumbersome administrative practices of the past. An alternative to the box with folders in the basement of the archive officer of the respective municipality. Thus, a unified electronic system was introduced for all services offered by the Estonian state. But, in order to make citizens active in the completely new communication between them and the public administration, the politicians are proposing that with the purchase of a new computer, they also receive the valuable electronic signature. Cunning, huh?

The problem with the electronic signature in our country, which serves as a means of identification for the user and is the key to a number of services, is not only that the state has imposed an annual subscription for us to have it, but it has not been far-sighted enough to integrate it via a cryptographic chip into the new ID cards. If this had been done, when a person enters the code from the chip into the search engine for a certain administrative service of a given department or municipality, it will be recognized and will sign an electronic form, which will have the same value as a paper signature.

Instead, in our country we stick to the boxes. A good example of the slow and inglorious introduction of e-government came to us on May 16, 2012. After a 5-year delay in the legally established deadline, at the end of 2012 the unified information system for people with disabilities was finally expected to be launched. A system that would be used in parallel by the medical expertise bodies (TELK, NELK and DELK), the National Social Insurance Institution, the Ministry of Health, the Agency for People with Disabilities and a bunch of other structures. On the date in question, the Commission for the Protection of Competition terminated the public procurement for the implementation of the project due to violations in the process of selecting a contractor. The result of the ill-intentioned assignment of the procedure is very simple – delaying the solution to the problem of lack of coordination between the structures over time, starting the entire process from scratch and losing millions of leva to taxpayers due to the low efficiency of the administration.

We all hate bureaucracy and administrative obstacles. The Bulgarian is already ready to break with this archaic system of communication with the administration. Just remember the large percentage of families that were counted electronically last year. Only politicians remain. In their hands is the challenge called e-government. The bad news for all of us is that along with relief for citizens and businesses, e-government implies increased responsibility in administrative circles. What do you think, will it be?

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