- Why should countries switch to electronic government?
First, it delivers cost savings toward administering the government. We’re developing electronic services that avoid human mistakes, save money and help make up for our shortage of workers. Now, what’s the benefit for citizens or businesses? They save time and money. People aren’t spending money on transportation to meet local authorities or institutions — they can do it where they live.
All of our ministries need strong coordination. Previously, Latvia did a lot of work in this field and we wasted money, because different ministries deveoped similar projects in parallel — the same project for the Defense Ministry, the Culture Ministry or the Education Ministry. We saw we had to build a centralized solution, which is what we’re doing.
- What programs has the ministry developed?
We’ve established secure electronic signatures, which are important for businesses making deals with government. They don’t have to visit tax offices once a month, now they send reports electronically. And, by the end of the year, businesses will be able to be registered within three hours.
Also, we’ve developed an electronic procurement system, the first in Eastern Europe. And it’s saved us between 7 percent and 25 percent over our traditional procurement systems. In addition, we’ve made our central registries interoperable, which built the base for our electronic services.
- The Czech Republic is a bit behind on its similar programs. Any advice?
The Czech Republic made a political decision to save money by closing the IT Ministry earlier this year — maybe you’ll see that was a mistake. That’s the internal business of the country. The Czech government could solve their problems another way.
In Latvia, we organized this special government ministry for electronic government affairs for a couple of reasons. First, we saw we had to reorganize public administration and make it more customer-friendly, as I said. Second, we wanted a ministry that focused on information technology (IT) because we saw that 4 percent of our labor force — those in IT — were producing 20 percent of our economy. They’re adding a huge amount of value. We recognized that IT had to be a priority. So we looked at how we can support our IT companies and help them increase exports. That’s one of my tasks.
- When you say exporting IT, what does that mean?
In Latvia, more than 80 percent of our IT is in services. We can’t compete with the U.S., China or India in software production — we don’t have enough people. We work in niches, like system integration, system architecture and project management. Then we export those services.
I’ve made trips to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, both countries with lots of oil and potential. And there’s Northern Africa — Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco. They’re interested in ready solutions for IT. They have no time to develop solutions. So let’s put our energy together and go to Northern Africa.
Small European countries must work together — and not just to compete in the European market. Latvia and the Czech Republic have the same opinion that we must go outside of the European Union. Inside Europe, we have a lot of competition. Some small and midsize companies in small countries have great potential for export but are too small for the global market. But, by making clusters, as we did for IT export, and looking outside the EU, we can help small countries compete with their larger counterparts.
- How have Latvia and the rest of the Baltic states done so well in getting large portions of their populations on the Internet?
We don’t even talk about Internet usage much now, because 65 percent of all of Latvia’s residents use the Internet every day. Eighty percent of our bank account owners use Internet banking. This really grew within the past four years, and partially that’s because we’ve had a lack of human resources. With no workers, we had to find other solutions, so we put money into technologies that can do the same job without people.
- One problem many countries have is getting broadband Internet access to rural regions, the so-called “last mile” problem. How do you handle this?
It’s still a problem in small, rural areas. In Latvia, it’s even more of a problem because we don’t live in villages; we live in separate houses far away from each other. We have farmers and people who like to build houses in the forest, like me.
Day by day we’re seeing a higher percentage of broadband in rural areas, and we’re using an EU program to help us achieve these goals. I’m sure in two years we’ll solve this problem.
- Earlier this year, European authorities limited Prague’s municipal wireless program to government use. What’s your take on public wireless projects?
We’ve thought about it. The stupiest project I’ve heard of was in Tallinn, Estonia, where they installed Wi-Fi on the beach. Even if businesspeople are bringing their computers to the beach, it’d be impossible to work because of the sunlight. You wouldn’t see anything.
We could do it, but Wi-Fi is already in almost any café, especially in Riga’s center. People mostly use the Internet inoffices or homes. We have Wi-Fi in the airport and universities. So do we want Wi-Fi in public parks? There are so few people who will use it, especially since our weather isn’t so good — who’d stay in a park for a long time?
- Kids are using the Internet at younger and younger ages. How should parents look at controlling children’s Web use?
Latvia has a program called Net.Safe, where we educate teachers and paents about Internet security. It’s important, because people make stupid mitakes just because they don’t know how to deal with the Internet. We grew up in a time without Internet usage manners. Our parents taught us table manners, how to use a knife and fork, but nobody taught us how to use the Internet. We all learned by ourselves.
But there are rules you have to know, and we’re teaching those to children. Our research found that 92 percent of children aged 12 years or younger have already used the Internet. That means in the third or fourth grade, it’s already too late to teach them.
- Speaking of security, what do you make of the Internet attack against your neighbor, Estonia, in May of this year, which effectively cut off many of its key Internet services for days?
What happened in Estonia could happen anywhere. We have less serious attacks like this in Latvia every day. It was a lesson we have to understand. Government institutions have to seriouly think about establishing virtual private networks so that if they see a big attack coming, they can close their systems.
Commercial enterprises like banks usually pay attention to internal security: how to save money and systems from hackers. Not many enterprises think about how to protect themselves from the kinds of attacks that hit Estonia. Their systems weren’t cracked. They just went down from too many fake potential users trying to access their system.
- Last year Latvia’s economy grew 11.9 percent, the highest rate in the EU. Is the country growing too fast?
We have to think seriously about how to cool off this situation, because this growth is bringing negative things like high inflation and causing serious headaches. It’s not a simple period for the government. We have to make some unpopular decisions on how to decrease the growth of salaries. In 2007, the growth of salaries in Latvia will be 37 percent. The government decided that next year salaries in the public sector can’t grow higher than 10 percent. Of course, some workers, like teachers and police officers, are not happy with this decision. We have to explain that it’s part of the classic fight against high inflation.
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The Gudele file:
- Job title: Special assignments minister for electronic government affairs, Latvia
- Age: 43
- Nationality: Latvian
- Previous position: Director, IG Komunikacijas; executive director, Latvian Internet Association
- Education: Faculty of Engineering and Construction, Riga Polytechnic Institute
- Family: Married, two children
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Paul Voosen
Quelle/Source: The Prague Post, 28.11.2007
