Tan Kin Lian's Blog: eGovernment adds to stress and cost

Friday, March 05, 2010

eGovernment adds to stress and cost

As a director of a small company, I am required to submit application forms for Ministry of Manpower, Inland Revenue and other agencies. They expect me to log into their website using my Sing Pass, and to enter the details in the application form.

In the real world, the paper forms are completed by an office staff and submitted to a director for signature. In the e-Government, they expect the director to complete the form by entering all the details, just like an office staff. This is a big waste of time for the director and is likely to lead to many mistakes.

The e-Government environment should follow the real world and allow a staff to complete the details in the form and then submit it electronically to a director to "e-sign" the form, which can be done by entering the Sing Pass ID and password.

I have given this suggestion to the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) but was told that these specific applications are under the control of the agency and is outside of the influence of IDA. This is typical of the "turf" mentality of Singapore organisations.

I know that for some applications, it is possible for the director to authorise a staff to submit the forms on behalf of the director. However, this is not practical in many situations and is tentamount to giving the check book and check signing authority to the staff!

The private sector has to work under stress and waste a lot of valuable time complying with the requirements of government agencies. With this type of waste, it is no wonder that the cost of doing business is so high and life is so stressful in Singapore!

Tan Kin Lian

11 comments:

Anonymous said...: Another fine example of "productivity" Singapore style.

Let's hope the deaf frog is not also blind. Otherwise, cannot read your blog.; March 05, 2010 9:16 PM
Anonymous said...: To be fair, the Singapore government has done quite a lot to automate the IT processes, ACRA in particular has done quite well. Although I expect the cost to be tremendous, perhaps hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars worth of programming contracts given to NCS, SCS and DSTA to come out with the ecitizen websites.; March 05, 2010 11:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Mr. Tan, For the IRS, there is a feature that separate the preparer and approval so you can e-approved after checking the prepared submission by the staff.; March 06, 2010 7:42 AM
Anonymous said...: To ANON: 11.32pm
" ... I expect the cost to be tremendous, perhaps hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars worth of programming contracts ... "

- We are not interested in the inputs.
- We are only interested in the outputs. What was actually delivered. (what government scholars call the deliverables)

This has always been the Singaporean problem. The focus on the inputs like;
- employee must be young
- must be a graduate with 1st class honours
- must be a scholar with unbroken track record in academic achievement

The focus is seldom on the output. What was actually delivered or achieved.

- So if you are a non-scholar, over 40 years old, your achievements and contributions will always be discounted and credited to someone else with the desired "inputs".

I've not seen Straits Times or any leader come out and define what is "productivity' yet.

Uniquely Singapore. We don't know where we are going. We are deaf to all feedback. But we are going anyway.

As an engineer, my personal definition of productivity is output divided by input.

So spending billions of dollars (input) for a lousy e-government system (output) is poor productivity.; March 06, 2010 7:54 AM
C H Yak said...: If the definition of "productivity" is clearly defined in Parliament, quite a lot of the debates generated during this Budget in Parliament would be in itself classified as WASTE and non-productive...this is the beauty of this Budget debate. LOL.

To me...productivity concept is simply :-

Say 2 efficient workers (A & B) - instructed to do the same work (input as per Anon. March 06, 2010 7:54 AM)...

A did the work 100% correct(efficient) in 2 hours ...

B did the works 100%correct (also efficient) in 3 hours ...

But we say Worker A is not only efficient but also "effective" or "productive"...the productivity means he get it done in 1 hour lesser time...this must be due to his skills ... if 2 hours is reasonable time for him to complete his task.

If the works are done by machine, we would expect the same rate of production.

The productivity may drop because of poor processes ... this has to do with the management ... not the workers...

Back to our Politicians and NTUC leaders, if they are "deaf" and prefers not to communicate on what is "productivity" with workers then it is no use giving workers training ... it will not help boost productivity ... the same applies to the mangement of companies ... so corporates must create the right culture for CHANGE.

If they prefer to remain "deaf", I do not think they can be "effective" to implement policies to influence business and production processes to boost "productivity" ... and alot of these debates would be just "WASTE" and unproductive.

Hence, such strategies often failed according to Change Consultants ... 50 ~ 70 % would fail because of poor leadership to see it through ... because people had chosen to be "deaf" which is wrong "CULTURE"...and workers would be confused.

So it is not just the "frog" story but also the reverse engineering of the "rabbit and tortoise race" story in order to understand the definition of "productivity"...

We need the frog to be as "persistent" as the tortoise but we need to the same "tortoise" to run as fast as a rabbit but we need to prevent him from "sleeping" ... if people are "blind and deaf" ... they are as good as "sleeping" ... This is the CULTURAL aspect of the CHANGE which is required.; March 06, 2010 11:55 AM
Anonymous said...: "So spending billions of dollars (input) for a lousy e-government system (output) is poor productivity."

This is what happens when the government has a free hand and monopolizes national resources.

Singapore likes to benchmark itself against Israel, this is the list of Israeli companies listed on Nasdaq - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_companies_quoted_on_the_Nasdaq

The list is indeed intimidating.

According to wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

Israel has a population of 7.4 million, which is 50% more than Singapore's current population. Israel's GDP is lower than Singapore ($239 billion versus $202 billion). So what does it tell you? GDP is not an indication of the economic ability of the country.; March 06, 2010 2:04 PM
Anonymous said...: My fellow Singaporeans.

It looks like the emperor has bought himself a set of new clothes again. This time the brand is called "productivity."

At least one of the Ministers has said that he will need to be deaf in order to better espouse the quality of the emperor's new clothing.

We the heartlanders will also have to follow his deaf leadership. Let's all act 'dumb" and put on our best 'wayang' faces. Let's all say "Very good old chap. Jolly good idea! Please carry on."

I don't know how much it's going to cost Singaporeans in terms of CONsultancy fees to the productivity experts. I just wish we could direct some of this money to the poor instead. Sigh!

Meanwhile, the show or wayang must go on. Hooray for Teamy the Productivity Bee! Let's all be the best (actors) that we can be!. We are Singapore, Singaporeans!; March 06, 2010 7:14 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to March 5 11:32 AM

I find the system adopted by ACRA to be quite unfriendly.

As the director of a small business, I was asked by the manager to sign a form to change some particulars.

The manager had to send to me a detailed instruction on login with SingPass and click through half a dozen links to get the form to "approve".

I learned that the ACRA website, like many websites of large organisations is called a "spider web". To get to the right page, you need someone to guide you through many links and clicks.

It is better for ACRA to allow the manager to send a link to get me straight into the completed form, so I can just "sign" it by entering my SingPass.

But, our bureaucrats cannot think in this way. So, ACRA is also quite painful to use. Same with the Registrar of Societies.; March 07, 2010 11:41 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: Reply to 6 Mar 7:42 am.

I applied to IRAS for an access account. It took 4 days and a few telephone calls to chase for this account. Finally, I missed my deadline to submit my first GST return.

I do not know how easy it is to authorize a staff to enter the form, but the so-called security measures are a nightmare.

We need a way to improve the system to be easy for consumers. I hope that IRAS, ACRA, Registrar of Societies and IDA (who are probably monitoring my blog) can invite me for a chat.; March 07, 2010 11:45 AM
Anonymous said...: It's probably more productive (no extra work on their part) for ACRA to get Mr Tan KL to adjust himself to ACRA, than for ACRA to adjust to Mr Tan KL.

This is called monopolistic power.

It's similar to what happens when the number of companies (and hence competition) is reduced because of mergers and acquisitions.; March 07, 2010 4:26 PM
Anonymous said...: Government departments are reported to be more productive, not because they really are, but because they push all the donkey work to the public, while they cope with fewer staffs.

If you want to apply for something, you have to do it yourself or nothing will get done. You may get fined or penalizsed.

That's the brutal truth.; March 07, 2010 5:00 PM