Hanoi Times – The Ministry of Information and Communications will organize a conference to collect opinions of leading experts on IT application and developing e-Government in Vietnam on Wednesday, March 5.
On February 29, the Ministry’s officials met with IT managers of ministries and State agencies to discuss the plan on IT application at State agencies in 2008.
Director of the IT Centre under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Nguyen Hai Ha, said there is a fact that whenever State agencies’ officials need IT, they just pay attention to IT application. When IT departments suggest other apartments to apply IT, they often receive an answer “Let’s do it, we are ready to use it”, meaning that the IT department can do anything it wants and they don’t care, said Ha.
Ha said to make IT application more efficient and effective, the above thinking must be changed. According to him, State agencies’ managers need to ask IT departments to do this or that for them, not let IT departments do anything they want.
Many IT managers also said that some IT applications can be implemented immediately at State agencies, for example video conferencing, online meeting, and online information exchange, etc.
Experts said that to speed up IT application in State agencies, raising the awareness of IT application for State employees, especially officials, is a need. Setting clear goals in IT applications in State agencies is another urgent task.
IT managers at Ministries and State agencies also suggested the establishment of a central IT application agency for each ministry and State organ. Currently, provinces and cities have such an agency, which are provincial and municipal Departments of Post and Telecommunications.
Head of the IT Application Agency under the Ministry of Information and Communications Nguyen Thanh Phuc said this year four key tasks will be carried out: completing the e-mail system in State agencies at all levels to promote information exchange through the Internet; upgrading websites of ministries and provinces; applying IT in managing documents and files at State agencies; and testing the forms of video conferencing and online meetings at State agencies.
