E-Government and Innovations in Service Delivery: The Malaysian Experience

As part of its public sector reform the government of Malaysia has embarked upon a massive e-government program seeking to introduce innovations in service delivery and enhance the quality and performance of public services. Started with the establishment of the Multimedia Super Corridor in 1996 the governmental initiatives have already resulted in significant progress towards ICT application in the public sector at national, state and local levels. A number of e-government schemes are currently underway that seek to make services accessible to the public at any time from anywhere without being constrained by agency working hours and distance. The present article focuses on Malaysia's experience with e-government and innovations in service delivery. In specific terms, it examines and analyses the e-government experiments in Malaysia and comments on their impacts on governance and service provision. It shows that although the e-government initiatives have produced, generally speaking favorable impacts on delivery of public services, their overall impact has remained limited due to a plethora of constraints and slow pace of their implementation. Not only the range of services offered is limited but also those expected to benefit from such services lack adequate access to information and sources as manifested in the country's poor e-maturity and e-readiness levels.