Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

services are being made available via private-sector
intermediaries through NTUC Income’s Big Trumpet
portal (www.bigtrumpet.com.sg). For example, under
the MyTravel section, an individual can search for a
tour package, buy travel insurance and apply for an
exit permit from the Ministry of Defense—all at the
same website.
Singapore, which has been a leader in using mobile
technology for eGovernment applications, continued
its push in this area by introducing a large number
of innovative services. For example, employers with
10 employees or fewer can now submit their Central
Provident Fund contributions through mobile
phones (http://www.cpf.gov.sg/cpf_info/ mpal.asp).
They can track the submission status, as well as
retrieve their record of payment. Citizens also can
view their fund accounts via their mobile phones.
The National Library Board (www.nlb.gov.sg) introduced
a service where library users can check their
library account, renew their books, pay their library
fees and fines, and even receive reminder alerts of
their loans via short messaging service.
Because the Singaporean government has put
almost all of its feasible e-services online, the next
rational step is to promote them. Some of the incentives
to get customers to change their behaviors
from traditional mode to the online world include
differentiated pricing, faster turnaround time and
high-quality e-services. For example, it costs S$10
less to apply for a passport online. Online applications
for telecommunications dealer class licences
cost 20 percent less than applications through the
non-electronic mode.
4.2 million hits a month. An enhanced eCitizen site
was launched in December 2003 that specifically
caters to customers’ online behaviors and preferences.
Prior versions allowed for only two ways to
access services: via search engine and through 16
different subject categories. Additional and more
streamlined access paths are expected by March
2004, including My.eCitizen, a personal home page
that allows customers to pick and choose e-services
relevant to their particular life situation.
While Singapore continues to be a world leader, over
the past two years there has been evidence that the
country was reaching a plateau of eGovernment
maturity and needed to take a fresh approach. The
new action plan for 2003 to 2006 demonstrates that
the Singaporean government is now ready to take
definitive steps to move to a new stage of online
service provision. The government’s citizen-centered
focus, its willingness to reengineer offline processes
for an online world and its smart approach of building
on its considerable past investments, may have put
the country on the brink of a far more significant
gain on world-leading Canada during the next year.
The government’s efforts to provide valuable online
services and encourage their adoption clearly are
leading to high citizen satisfaction and impressive
take-up. The government’s own research reveals that
75 percent of Singaporeans who need to transact
with the government do so through electronic
means and that for those who transact online, four
out of five were satisfied (http://app.mof.gov.sg/
pressrelease/speechdetails.aspspeechID=87). The
country’s eCitizen portal, www.ecitizen.gov.sg, which
received some updates in 2003, averages about
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