Sleman plans to be online by 2007

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post/Sleman, Yogyakarta

The Sleman government plans to have an integrated online administration up and running by 2007, not this year as initially planned, Regent Ibnu Subiyanto says.

Ibnu said the program was initially scheduled to start operation this year. However, as many government agencies, including many at the subdistrict level were computer illiterate, the program had been postponed for two years, he said.

All government offices down to village level would be connected through an online network, creating a paperless management system, Ibnu said.

"Through this system, governance in the regency will be much more efficient and effective. It will make it easier for us to communicate with each other, and it will help create better coordination in management."

Ibnu said some 50 percent of his local government staff were already IT-literate.

A consultant to the Sleman government, Djaka Waluja, said that the program would be jointly financed by the Asian Development Bank and the Sleman government.

The bank will provide some Rp 10 billion (US$1.1 million) of the money while the regental government will contribute some Rp 2 billion.

The program is part of the bank's Sustainable Capacity Building for Decentralization program.

Once it was up and running, Sleman would probably be the first regency in Indonesia to have such a multipurpose system that could be used for identity card registrations, population data bases, development planning and as a general information center, Djaka said.

The program would make registering for identity cards much easier, he said.

When the system was fully operational, people would no longer need to come to government offices to get their ID cards.

"All they will need to do is just send in a personal identification number and a photograph through an Internet connection, and then they will be able to print the card anywhere," he said.