COMMUNICATION: Russia Cleans Up the E-Way

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, May 30 2003 (IPS) - The Russian government is turning to the Internet in an attempt to make its bureaucracy more efficient and less corrupt.

A project it calls E-Russia was launched in Moscow earlier this month to bring bureaucratic ways to the surface on the net. The 2.4 billion dollar project will span eight years, officials say.

The project aims to post all information online about government agencies and their activities other than state secrets.

For a start, six companies were given 10 projects worth 3.6 million dollars. The projects will put several official agencies online over the next two years.

Pilot projects have been launched in some regions such as Chuvashia in Central Russia for filing taxes online. The pilot projects will test a nationwide launch and also seek to determine how far they can benefit administrative, pension and housing sector reforms.

Tseren Tserenov, head of the department for corporate management and new economics at the Economic Development and Trade Ministry says that government bodies at all levels will be required to make themselves more transparent by opening up their information resources to the public.

"We are convinced that administrative and other reforms cannot be implemented without E-Russia," Tserenov said at the Expocom-2003 exhibition in Moscow last week. "On the other hand, we can’t build electronic government without proper administrative reforms. We can’t automate the chaos."

Access to online services will be a major problem. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry estimates that only eight or nine Russians in a hundred have access to the Internet. Increasing Internet access will be a key to the success of E-Russia’s success. Officials say people are expected to use the Internet to request information, and for tasks like filing their taxes online and registering property.

"There will be enough people to demand more openness from government, and for more services received from the government via the Internet," Tserenov said. "This will stimulate the government to implement the E-Russia programme."

Supporters of the initiative say it will assist cooperation among government departments. Moscow for instance pays out 25 million dollars a year in pensions to people who have died because it takes on average six months for a death certificate to reach the concerned department. Online data is expected to cut such losses.

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov ordered all government departments earlier this year to publish financial information on their web sites in an effort to curb corruption. The regulation is aimed at making the government more transparent and curbing corruption in the 54 government departments, particularly customs and the police. The departments include the 24 ministries, committees, services and other agencies.

The new guidelines list 51 categories of sensitive information that the agencies would have to publish on their web sites. Much of the information, particularly information on tenders and commissions, is not yet available online.

The business of tenders is believed to generate kickbacks worth up to a quarter of the value of the contract. President Vladimir Putin has conceded that it is "impossible to uproot corruption by punitive measures alone."

Boris Demidov, manager of the consulting agency Transparency International- Russia, says giving the public access to more information will be the key to fighting corruption. This will make officials more accountable, lead to greater transparency, and increase citizens’ trust in government, he said in a statement issued on the E-Russia programme.

But the moves may be undermined by Russia’s perennial problem of lack of money. A cut in funding could delay some projects, the Communications Ministry acknowledged in a statement.

Under the 2003 federal budget, only 45 million dollars was allocated for E- Russia, less than 20 percent of the budget envisaged earlier.

The Communications Ministry, however, claimed a successful start to the programme. Some official information is being published online, an electronic commerce system has been set up for government agencies, and several documents are now available online, the ministry claimed in its statement.