IT Bureau Chief of Ministry of Rural and Regional Development Isa yesterday claimed during an interview with a Mandarin Press that his Ministry’s website does have a public complaint portal and consultation system whereby internet surfers can lodge complaints online. There lies the question of whether it is sufficient only for ministries to have such system incorporated in the official websites of ministries.
One must admit that we are living in the era of internet, whereby information is transferred within seconds. This is well-described by the phrase “one click away”. Under such scenario, providing online public complaint portal is not much different from attending conventional counters, except that people nowadays do not have to go straight to the ministry’s office to lodge report.
Disclosed Ministers’ email addresses, let internet users to directly interact with Ministers.
Broadband internet service has been picking up its popularity among internet users nowadays, people have been doing away with the conventional dial-up internet connection slowly. One can say that data transmission speed do determine the quality of one’s works and one’s efficiency. If public complaints cannot be directly conveyed to the ministers, and if the complaint lodged through the ministry’s website have to go through all the conventional bureaucratic filters, then it will be meaningless to set-up such facility.
What is needed by the rakyat is to convey their message directly to the mailbox of the Ministers in lightning speed, in order to enchance the interaction between government officers, Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries with the Rakyat, especially when it has been the ambition of the government to turn Malaysia into a IT Hub with MSC. Furthermore, Ministers are also wakil rakyat who are also directly answerable to the Rakyat.
The Press Secretary of Minister of Energy, Water and Communications Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, Mr Tan Chuan Koon yesterday issued a statement to demand an apology from Lim Kit Siang for “saying Lim Keng Yaik does not have an email address. There is no ground in Tan Chuan Koon’s demand as Minister would be reasonably doubted of whether they have their own email addresses, when one has been trying to search the website upside down, just to look for their email address, which has ended up in failure!
Tan Chuan Koon must do his homeworks first.
Tan Chuan Koon should at least have a read on Lim Kit Siang’s official blog statement before he demanded an apology. Another good thing he should have done first is to visit at least 2 websites. The first one is DAP official website (http://www.dapmalaysia.org/), the second one is Lim Kit Siang web-blog (http://www.limkitsiang.blogspot.com). If possible, Tan Chuan Koon should follow the following link (http://limkitsiang.blogspot.com/2005/11/some-10-years-after-msc-most-ministers.html) to personally understand who Lim Kit Siang means.
In the first and the second paragraph of his posting entitled “Some 10 years after MSC, most Ministers still don’t use email”, he said, “It is unbelievable that some ten years after the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative, most Ministers still don’t use email. It has been quite a hassle just to get the email addresses of the Ministers of our jumbo Cabinet.”
Tan Chuan Koon should also read the last paragraph which sounds,
“It is clear that there are at least four categories of Ministers with regard to use of email:
(1) Ministers who have no email address for the public to access.
(2) Ministers whose public email are not functional.
(3) Ministers who do not open their own email.
(4) Ministers who do not open their own email or read the email opened for them”
In the first and second paragraph, it is mentioned that “most Ministers still don’t use email”, and “it is quite a hussle to get their emails addresses”. “Don’t use email” should not be equalized with “not using email addresses”. The last paragraph also narrates different conclusions of how Ministers use emails in our government.
It is clear that Lim Kit Siang did not mention anything like “Lim Keng Yaik does not have email address”. And the main focus should go back to whether any commoner can easily search for the email addresses of Ministers’ email addresses in their official websites? Why can’t the Ministers just publish their email addresses on their official websites? Are email addresses of Ministers an official secret which are not allowed to be disclosed publicly?
Therefore, Tan Chuan Koon should be amply prepared before he demand anyapology from anybody else. As such, he should withdraw all his allegations and his demand for apology.
Welcome Tan Yew Chong to email me
Principal Private Secretary of the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities (Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui), Mr Tan Yew Chong informed that his email address is available online, but I am personally interested to know from Tan Yew Chong of the URL of the websites? Tan can personally email me the URL my email address is lauwengsan@gmail.com or lauws@dapmalaysia.info.
Email addresses of DAP leaders are easily found.
In fact, Cabinet Ministry should somehow follow the comparatively easier and simple web design of DAP website, and everybody can find email addresses and other contact details of DAP leaders from the following hyperlinks:
1. DAP Central Executive Committees, (http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/cec04-07.html)
2. DAPSY National Executive Committees, (http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/dapsy05-07.htm).
3. Member of Parliaments (http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/mp.html)
4. State Assembly persons (http://www.dapmalaysia.org/english/sa.html)
Lau Weng San
9th November 2005.
No comments:
Post a Comment