At least half of the public sector’s 1,500 websites will be shut down by the end of the year. Websites that had not been maintained for more than six months must be shut down.
A government official said apart from optimising government resources, the move was also being carried out because there was a sizeable number of government websites which had not been properly maintained.
He added that the Malaysian Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu) conducted studies on the level of services provided by the government departments and agencies through their websites. It showed that there was still plenty of room for improvement.
“On average, one in three websites assessed last year received a rating of three stars and below. It was almost the same story in 2013,” he said.
He said an e-government survey carried out by the United Nations on the online service index provided by governments in 2012 had ranked Malaysia at 20th place out of 193 countries.
However, the ranking fell to 31 last year.
“It is important that a rationalisation exercise is carried out so that Malaysia’s ranking can be improved and the services offered to the people are of quality and meets the minimum standards,” he said.
Besides cutting operating and maintenance costs, the move was also to ensure the public received the latest information on government services quickly.
It was understood that an order was sent out to all ministries, state governments, statutory bodies and local councils in June on how the rationalisation exercise should be carried out.
Until 2011, the British government had shut down some 1,500 websites in a similar rationalisation exercise aimed at cutting unnecessary spending and to pave the way for a single government web domain.
Only slightly more than 400 websites were left and even these numbers were being reduced.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Sarban Singh
Quelle/Source: The Star Online, 11.10.2015