Building Trust through E-Government: Leadership and Managerial Issues

Erosion of citizen’s trust in Government due to rampant corruption at various levels in the Government ought to be an area of serious concern for developing countries and development agencies. A well-planned e-government strategy can build a more efficient, accountable and transparent government. If planned in consultation with representation from key stakeholders, e-government applications can rebuild citizen trust in government, by improving service delivery, reducing corruption and empowering citizens to participate in advancing good governance. The paper discusses few examples of eGovernment where corruption was significantly reduced and draws lessons on leadership and managerial issues in deploying ICTs to combat corruption. What is Public Trust? According to an OECD report public service is a public trust. Citizens expect public servants to serve the public interest with fairness and to manage public resources properly on a daily basis. Fair and reliable public services inspire public trust and create a favorable environment for businesses, thus contributing to well-functioning markets and economic growth. The OECD report identifies a number of core public service values as being important for building citizen trust. These include: impartiality; legality; integrity; transparency; efficiency; equality; responsibility and justice. Many of these core values have been compromised with the spread of corruption in its various manifestations in many developing countries. UNDP defines corruption as the misuse of public power, office or authority for private benefit – through bribery, extortion, influence peddling, nepotism, fraud, speed money or embezzlement. Corruption is principally a governance issue – a failure of institutions and a lack of capacity to manage society by means of a framework of social, judicial, political and economic checks and balances. In the wake of globalization and increased pressures for improving “governing institutions,” there is a global demand for accountable and transparent governance. Strategies to Reduce Corruption Two major factors that contribute to the growth of corruption are the low probability of discovery, and perceived immunity against prosecution. Secrecy in government, restrictions on access to information by citizens and the media, ill-defined / complex and excessive rules, procedures and regulations can all lead to a low chance of discovery. A lack of transparency in the functioning of government agencies can make it easy for the perpetrators to cover their tracks thus making unearthing of corruption very difficult. The weak character of institutions which are supposed to investigate charges of corruption and prosecute the guilty, as well as an inefficient or corrupt judiciary further exacerbate the problem of corruption and facilitate immunity of perpetrators against prosecution. Strategies to reduce corruption must therefore 1 OECD (2000). Building Public Trust: Ethics Measures in OECD Countries. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/60/43/1899427.pdf 2 UNDP (2004). Anti-Corruption Practice Note. Retrieved from http://www.undp.org/policy/docs/practicenotes/Anti%20Corruption%20Note%20Draft%20FINAL%20copy%2 0edited%20100404.pdf target multifaceted reforms in the legal system, judicial processes and functioning of agencies delivering services. The extent of corruption needs to be measured and media needs to sensitize the society to the long term detrimental effects of corruption. Can eGovernment help in Combating Corruption? For some years there has been anecdotal evidence of impact on corruption from a large number of eGovernment case studies from developing countries. However, recent studies that assessed impact of eight wide scope and scale projects from India and two in Chile provided more concrete evidence (see Figure 1 below for an assessment of Indian projects). Corruption existed in six out of the eight projects before the service delivery was computerized. After computerization two projects were able to reduce corruption to a very significant extent and in 4 others there was a marginal reduction. The study used a systematic survey of 250 randomly selected clients (users) who had used both the manual and computerized systems in each project, seeking data on whether bribes were paid to get the service, amount of bribes paid, perception of corruption within the service delivery agency and perception on quality of governance in addition to several other attributes of a service delivery system. Two projects studied in Chile also showed that corruption was reduced. However, the fact that impact on corruption varies across projects suggests that the factors that contribute to success and failure in tackling corruption need to be studied further. Figure I Proportion paying bribes (Percentage)