Obstacles to Digital Transformation in Government Institutions

Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes:

The state is fighting the battle of digital transformation in the various government institutions and bodies, including those responsible for providing services to citizens, to raise the level and speed of performance in keeping with the times and the announcement of the birth of the New Republic.

Digital transformation has many advantages, such as electronic linking with the national ID number to create a sound and integrated national database that preserves the rights of individuals and the state alike, maximizing the state’s resources in a way that contributes to the country’s development plans, purging laws and regulations, and setting clear governing standards and controls for obtaining government services, among other advantages and goals.

Foremost among them combating corruption and bureaucracy, eliminating the culture of obstructing people’s interests and its methods, which have become entrenched in the mentality of many employees and managers in the administrative apparatus, and lifting the suffering and tension from the citizen’s shoulders resulting from dealing with the administrative system, which is like a journey of torment undertaken by anyone who wishes to obtain the services due to him.

This journey may begin at the archive, passing through the writing of applications, stamp duties, reviews, inspections, data errors, signatures, the closing times of the cash desk and other obstacles, making it an open-ended journey with no fixed duration.

It is known that electronic transformation faces many obstacles, whether material, technical and technological, or human.

The government is committed to implementing the work plans under the continuous and close follow-up of the political leadership, and the state is keen to provide the necessary material and technical capabilities, but the human element is the biggest challenge facing digital transformation.

Not only in terms of preparation and qualification to deal with technology or in terms of resistance to change, but also in terms of a weak level of culture and inherited habits of making material gains from service recipients without right.

There is no doubt that the state is achieving great accomplishments in all fields for the progress of Egypt and its future, with the aim of fulfilling ambitions and hopes of providing a decent life and comprehensive health insurance for citizens. However, digital transformation in government and service institutions may affect those successes unless its pace is accelerated.

The human element is a stumbling block to digital transformation as long as follow-up and oversight of performance are lacking; there are some institutions and bodies that have been announced as having gone electronic but are also following the road of obstructing interests, by disabling the means for citizens to follow up their applications or not informing them, because the electronic service is not performed for them, which increases their suffering.

For example, there is the Environmental Affairs Agency, which does not reply electronically to any investor or company that has submitted a complaint or a request to follow up on an application previously submitted, and one has to go in person to obtain the landline number to communicate instead of dealing electronically.

And there are the Specialized Medical Councils, which do not respond to requests to book an appointment for the medical examination to determine the degree of disability of some of our children of determination who are differently abled, merely posting a message on the website in response to the request (under examination) for more than two months, while refusing to deal with or listen directly to the guardian’s complaints.

In addition to the problem of the human element entering data incorrectly as a result of negligence or lack of understanding, and the resulting difficulties in correcting it, which empties digital transformation in those bodies of its content.

Complaints about the complexity of the procedures for obtaining services exceed the capabilities and complaint websites of the Prime Minister’s Office. The solution lies in every manager and official in his position playing his role in real follow-up and oversight of the work of subordinates and evaluating performance properly.

Young graduates may also be the hope of the future in changing the culture and the conviction of the importance of helping and respecting the citizen’s right to obtain the service as quickly as possible, with the highest efficiency and in a refined humane atmosphere, so as to complete the system of values and work in the New Republic.