Abstract

The e-Government Project in Fiji started in the year 2007. eGov as it is commonly referred to in Fiji was introduced as a means to improve economic development by providing Fiji government services online to businesses, citizens and government employees. The Fiji e-Government project covers the following aspects, which are the eGov consulting, applications, data centre, government info-communications, infrastructure, ICT Competency Development and Training. Since 2007, many e-Government applications have been developed and rolled out, with various degrees of awareness and acceptance by users. You will still find a queue of citizens waiting in frustration at government ministries and departments for information and services.

Among the many promises of the digital revolution is its potential to strengthen democracy and make governments more responsive to the needs of their citizens. E-government is the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) to transform government by making it more accessible, effective and accountable. E-government includes: providing greater access to government information; promoting civic engagement by enabling the public to interact with government officials; making government more accountable by making its operations more transparent and thus reducing the opportunities for corruption; and providing development opportunities, especially benefiting rural and traditionally underserved communities.

In this research paper, I am going to look at Fiji’s e-Government status and evaluate it against the e-Government Benchmarking that is used by the United Nations [UN]. The UN Report on Benchmarking e-Government Progress evaluates the following 5 sequential stages for a country: Stage 1. “Emerging” – an official government online presence is established; Stage 2. “Transactional” – users can actually pay for services and other transactions online; Stage 3. “Interactive” – users can download forms, e-mail government officials and interact via the web; Stage 4. “Enhanced” – government sites increase – information becomes more dynamic; Stage 5. “Seamless” – full integration of e-services across administrative boundaries.

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