‘Top ICT rank shows progress’ |03 August 2012

Vice-President Danny Faure said this at the ceremony in which he honoured staff of the department of ICT, particularly those who work in the information technology division, after Seychelles was awarded the highest regional e-government ranking in the african region.

Mr Faure – who is also the Minister for ICT – said the division’s staff’s technical skills, know-how, hard work, dedication and professionalism earned Seychelles the rank, and thanked them for their hard work.

“Winning the award and being first in our region is indeed commendable and without doubt testimony to the capability of DICT, but there is still much more to do so that our public service can reap the full benefits of e-government,” he said.

“We still have some key areas in government in need of line-of-business systems and we still need to have more services so that our citizens and businesses can interact with government electronically across a wider area, especially in fields where government experiences constraints such as planning and business facilitation.
 
“Progress is being recorded in relation to the latter with DICT fully engaged in this process in order to ensure that electronic business registration becomes a reality very soon.

This will surely support the government’s drive to facilitate doing business through creating conducive environment.”

Mr Faure said the survey report has also thrown light on new emerging issues that we need to cater for including e-participation, open governance, cloud computing and e-environment initiatives.

“More and more there has to be a link between e-government and sustainable development and public service improvement.”

The United Nations considered many factor before giving Seychelles the highest rank in ICT, director general for the information technology division Lanka Dorby said.

The ranking was part of the UN’s public service day and awards for excellence in public service programme, she told Nation, saying the day was celebrated on June 25 at the United Nations headquarters’ general assembly hall in New York .

“As part of the New York ceremony countries that did well in the 2012 e-government survey rankings were also recognised for having established robust telecommunications infrastructure, investing in the development of human capital and the usage of e-government facilities,” she said.
 
“Seychelles was awarded the highest regional e-government ranking category as the top performer for Africa region which covers central, eastern, northern, southern and western Africa.

“The winners were given the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service and e-government development with a trophy and a certificate.”

Other top performers were for the Asia region, the US was the top performer for the Americas, Netherlands for Europe, Australia for Oceania – which covers, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

The winners of the global e-government award were Korea which took first place, the Netherlands in second place and the UK in third place.

Ms Dorby said more than 400 people from across the globe attended the event.

Among those present were ambassador Ronny Jumeau, principal secretary for ICT Benjamin Choppy, Ms Dorby and principal counsellor at the Seychelles UN embassy Selby Pillay.