You Can’t Catch Up With Them… Will Tajikistan Be Able to Reach the Level of E-Government of Kazakhstan?

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Kazakhstan is ahead of the CIS and Central Asian countries in terms of the development of e-government, and Tajikistan is in the penultimate place in the Commonwealth.

To understand the benefits of e-government, one needs to look at the experience of Kazakhstan. Here, everything is tied to digitalization, even the government. 

In Kazakhstan, even children and the elderly enjoy the benefits of civilization. 

Firstly, almost all types of payments for goods and services here can be made / are carried out via online banking – even services in clinics and public transport – if the quality of the Internet allows, then why not use it. 

One household example: in Dushanbe, once, in order to pay with a QR code, I had to take a sign with this code, go down from the second floor of the store and go out into the street, and only then I was able to “catch” the connection and scan the code, in Kazakhstan you don’t even have time bring the mobile to the device, as the payment immediately passes. 

Secondly, you can also get almost all public services online. For this purpose, the Egov.Kz platform has been created in Kazakhstan – the same electronic government, the creation of which has also been talked about in Tajikistan for a long time, but nothing has changed for a long time either. 

Here you can enroll a child in a kindergarten, and submit documents for obtaining a military ID – in general, all types of services of state structures. 

To gain access to online services, it is enough to pass identification and receive an electronic digital signature (EDS). Citizens of Kazakhstan can be identified and receive an EDS on their own, without leaving their homes.

For this, the site has a video instruction.

But for this, non-residents of the country need to contact the Public Service Centers and go through the identification procedure there. After that, they also receive the EPC and access to public services online – to the extent that they are due to a foreign citizen.  

Obviously, in addition to convenience, such a system eliminates the corruption component. 

photo: tadviser.ru


And yet, in addition to services, the entire government of the country sits on this site. 

A separate section “Open Government” contains all initiatives aimed at ensuring transparency in the work of the public sector, including ministries and departments, local executive authorities and organizations of the quasi-public sector (enterprises, joint-stock companies, companies and holdings in which there is a state share).All of them have feedback from the population and business in order to involve them “in the process of making important government decisions.”   

Open Government consists of several components/portals.  

“Open data” – this portal is the dream of any Tajik journalist, when you do not need to send requests to government agencies even on the most insignificant issues and wait for months for a response. In this portal, the data of each department and body are in the public domain, with the exception of those that fall under closed data, and if necessary, you can immediately leave a request for additional information. 

The issue of feedback with the population is taken seriously here, for this there are special authorized bodies that monitor and respond to everything. Although, in the opinion of some Kazakhstani experts, answers can often be formal and not always satisfactory, but they still exist. 

At the same time, the work of the organs is evaluated. This is already within the framework of the portal “Assessment of the effectiveness of the activities of state bodies” . Here, the authorized bodies collect all the data on the work of each body, evaluate its work and present it to the president as a conclusion. 

Also, the electronic government has a portal “Open Budgets” , where all the information is available not only on the general state budget, but also on each body and structure, on cities, districts and regions. 

By the way, the process of adopting budgets with the participation of the population is also taking place here.   

Also, with the participation of the population, there is a discussion of regulatory legal acts ( portal “Open NLA” ). 

Interlocutors-experts of “Asia-Plus” especially note the effectiveness of this portal. According to them, in some cases, the opinion of a citizen may not be taken into account when adopting a particular draft law, but if there is a group opinion, then it is necessarily taken into account. Here we recall our cases with amendments to the Tax Code. Each time, the edits were widely discussed in society, but they were ultimately ignored. 

It is also appropriate, perhaps, to recall access to the laws and regulations of Tajikistan, which are available in full on the website of the Ministry of Justice, but access to which is paid …It turns out that we do not have access to the laws that we ourselves must comply with and that the authorities must observe. 

And another equally important portal is the Open Dialogue . As stated in the preamble of this portal, it was created to establish effective feedback between government agencies and society. 

Do not believe it, but in this portal every head of the public sector and local executive authorities has his own blog, where you can write and apply.

And again, behind the presence of an answer, perhaps not always satisfactory, there is control. In case of dissatisfaction, residents can immediately leave a complaint.  

In general, having studied this platform, one can only be glad for the neighbors, and maybe even envy, because Tajikistan started initiatives to create an electronic state much earlier – in 2003. Kazakhstan is in 2006 and already has a colossal result…

Source : ASIA-Plus