Title: E-Government
In Singapore – A SWOT and PEST Analysis
Abstract: E-Government
is one of the most important applications of the Internet. Many countries
have strived to improve their public services by engaging in e-Government
since e-Government can help government agencies to build trust with citizens
and enable citizens to participate in the policy making process. E-Government
also promotes openness, transparency and accountability and thus can change
the relationship between the public sector and the citizens as well as the
private sector (Clift, 2004). In Singapore, e-Government has been
developed along the re-engineering of the Public Services in the 21st century
(PS21) (Thum, 2001). With proper public policies and a vision to make Singapore
an “intelligent island” (Choo, 1997), Singapore has been successfully transferred
from a third world country to a newly developed country which has become
one of the world leaders in e-Government. From an initial limited number
of Internet users, Singapore has 49% of its population connected to the Internet
and 73% penetrates to mobile phones in 2003 (Ravindran, 2003). Singapore
occupied the 11th position among 65 countries in 2005 in terms of e-readiness
(Economist Intelligence Unit, 2005, p. 4). This paper aims to discuss
the vision, the objectives and the strategic framework of e-Government with
five thrusts and six programs in Singapore. The development of three main
groups: Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B) and Government
to Employees/Public Servants (G2E) is also examined. Finally, this paper
employs the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis
and PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) determinants to
study the current and future states of e-government in Singapore. In
short, nobody can deny the important role of e-Government in providing quality
services to citizens, businesses and public servants in the digital economy.
Rapidity, Reliability, Efficiency, Cost-effectiveness and Customer-orientation
and Accessibility are the main guidelines for the development of e-Government.
The current and future states of e-Government depend on many internal and
external factors at national, regional and international levels.
Authors: Huong Ha