Daily Times

In 2003 I joined one of the local banks for a couple of years where I felt that my potential is being under-utilized so I left that bank. After a few days, one of my friends called me that there is an international bank that wants to expand their branch network so, in short, after getting to know the people in the bank and its norms, in 2006, I joined Citi Bank. In the beginning it was difficult for me to adapt to the new environment as their culture was strong and people working in the bank religiously followed the culture. It was difficult for me to leave the traditions of former work place but it took me about couple of month to adapt to the new culture and once I got used to it I started loving the way things were designed and were asked to be followed. It was all E governance. They had digitalized everything and all communication between the employees from top to bottom including the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly strategies were to be written down online on the prescribed set of questions and rules which has to be followed irrespective of their rank and status in the bank. One day I asked one of my seniors that when we meet our seniors and they say that one is decided in principle but please send me in writing and unless and until it is not sent in writing things do not get approved for each and every transaction. His answer was that in Citi Bank we have strong controls and good governance and because of that everything is recorded in soft and hard copies. That was one of the great leanings in my life where I learned about the strong controls and good governance which is still helping me in my daily life. This idea of e-governance was discussed in detail by one of the experienced operation personnel Mr. Fazal Ahmed back in 2006-2007 when I was working there. Idea of e-governance is still in my mind but it needs to be implemented in our country from top to bottom.

For the last many years every day we have been hearing the terms good governance and bad governance. Let me share with you that there are different types of governance as This term “governance” is very broad term and includes all formal and informal organizations; like Public Governance, Private governance, Global governance, Corporate governance, Project governance, Internet governance, Information Technology governance, Participatory Governance, Meta governance, Good governance and Electronic governance / E-Governance. These all are part of the government activity.

One should know the difference between the government and governance. Government is the bigger entity and governance is what a government does and E-governance is the delivery of services, passing and exchange of information, daily communication and transactions and different interaction of communication and services between government to international governments, government to provincial governments, government to business entities and government to civil society as well as the back office processes and interactions within the entire government background.

E-governance is action of good governance and the idea of good governance was therefore discussed by many experts and they highlighted the problems faced by the government authorities in our daily life. My view point of implementing good governance is that now it can only be implemented through e-governance for good, in order to cover the back lash and discrepancies of the system and to speed up the processes to implement the governance with due diligence, transparency and accountability that will create a long term impact with sustainability of the government and to all the citizens especially a common man which is being deprived of his fundamental rights.

Let us think and for example take Pakistan as one of the large institution or organization that has many different departments and sub departments where there are head of departments and their subordinates who are responsible to run that department successfully. Every head of department should be held responsible for his subordinates working in that department for the strong controls, good governance, transparency and accountability. Every human resource must be given the assignment with deadline targets to achieve and their appraisal and promotion depends on achieving his targets results. Once the strong system of controls or checks and balances is implemented in every department there should be no concession in order to meet their targets then the governance of every department will get better but for that person who is leading the department should have characteristic of a good leader.

In simple means, governance over all has few important ingredients that is a lawful state with a democratic authorization , an effective and accessible administration, transparency in the public and private sectors. The independent judiciary, based on impartiality, equity and with honest police ensures the rule of law with a system of checks and balance on executive as well and in additional support from making decisions based on equity and competence from unbiased public servants in true nature. They should be the servants of the public and their competency should reflect in clear lines of accountability and transparency in their work and life through responsive decision making. There should be competent law makers for the effective legislature who hail from all classes and come from all parts of the country to, who understand and work for the interest of the common man and should have that ability to build consensus among themselves. The role of civil society is becoming more important now as they are becoming more strong and effective than before focusing on the fundamental rights of people giving them platform to have the freedom of speech and their civil and political rights and having focus on social goals, including inclusiveness, justice and environmental protection.

Governance has been one of biggest challenges for every government since three decades whether it is democracy or dictatorship. Every government has faced problems in strategizing and implementing polices in order to streamline the governance but unfortunately it was hard for all the leaders to make it transparent and accountable. The lack of experience, lack of will, malice intention, externals factors creating hurdle like pressure from judiciary and establishment, influence of the western powers and related institution like IMF and world bank and many unseen factors which may pop up from event to event or day to day activity. One of the other major factors that why governance is not being properly cared is that most of political leadership is not coming from the grass root level either they are feudals or businessmen who have conflict of interest with their own businesses which flourish during their own tenure in power. Cartels and mafias of different business interests create big hurdle in the implementation process of the governance.

Free and fair elections are again one of the important aspects of establishing the good governance. There is an army of bureaucrats in which there are many competent, but few have been a part of the rotten system. The due process of their work is very slow which has now become their culture to make it difficult for governance to implement it at the right time and right place but so far that is the only implementing forum for the facilitation and implementation of the governance.

It relates to the developments of collaboration and decision-making among the players involved in a shared difficulty that leads to the formation, support, or matching of societal patterns and traditions. In nonprofessional relations, it could be called as the political methods that exists in and between formal institutions.

E-Governance is the way guidelines, customs and arrangements are designed, prolonged, legalized and held answerable.

Let us focus on the e-governance and e-governance services which is a far-reaching idea that describes and evaluates the effect that the information technology and interaction of government exercises and affairs between within the government departments, like E-payroll, E-benefits, E-training also from distance learning and Maintaining records of personal information, and between the government and society as a whole.

The e-governance maintains efficient access to the democratic, political processes and to information. The e-governance improves the efficiency of communication and relations between the government and civil society. This will also improve the functioning of government authorities at all levels of planning from top to bottom. This will improve the facility of all government and public services. The idea of e-governance has to be understood in a broad sense as a kind of superstructure which should be implemented and covers the use of technologies. The first principle of good governance is Citizens and E-governance has an unforeseen influence on relations between the governments and their citizens that strengthens the participation and connection of citizens in political choices so that their rights and duties are better unstated and appreciated. Government will have to bear the huge expense for this implementation but this investment will make a difference for the generations of all times to come and will create an impact that will be long term. It will take time to make everyone get used to of it as not everyone knows or has an access to the internet. NADRA along with other few important government organizations can play a very vital role to making it happen. Prime Minister portal is a good effort but there are many areas which are time consuming in responding to the real time problem. The service provider government organizations must have to upskill their personal for efficient and effective customer services which will be set a good example of governance.

By implementing e-governance systems which has positively accomplished its useful benefits for citizens, To receive services provided by departments and institutions, have access to them via the Internet, to learn throughout life and participate in government, for improvement of business, let them have access to public services on the Internet, to collaborate with the state to promote economic development including trade and production, for government departments, to improve its efficiency, improve customer relationships management across the country in all the departments in government, semi government, provincial or private entities offering services to the common man and involve all citizens in political debate, focusing on strategic directions for future and revisiting the public policy for Pakistan.

To fully implement e-governance in Pakistan it is necessary to have the web based portal giving access to the every common man which should be user friendly connected to the NADRA for due diligence and coordinated by other important departments and work like money transfer apps on the cell phone by the cell phone companies focusing consistently for the technical support to the common man and ensure coordination between all government federal and provincial authorities, local self-government systems and networks to fully be equipped with the high speed data and to take steps to ensure cyber security for the privacy for the government data and the data of the citizens with the insertion of a high due diligence of the due processes of laws and to ensure and work for implementation of the current regulation and laws or new regulations that requires an enactment of laws in the constitution of Pakistan. This will give rise to the political participation and integration of common man with government and these will be more efficient government transactions activities and also give rise to digital democracy. Technology can play a major role in order to make a difference in the country by implementing e-Governance that will make the life of common man reachable to the top and livable with the every need and want in today’s world.