BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE E-Government National Centre (EGNC) will be launching their new data.gov.bn, a website that supports Open Data, and has revamped their E-Darussalam Portal to further encourage both the government and citizens of Brunei to move towards an online future.

The information was released during a press conference at the Briefing Room 1 of ICC, led by the Director of EGNC Md Norshafiee DP Hj Abdul Jalil, with the support of the Project Manager of Open Data Portal Pg Adrian Pg Salleh Abd Rahaman and the Project Manager of E-Darussalam Siti Zurainah Hj Zainal Abidin.

Pg Adrian explained that “Open Data is a global concept where the organisations, especially the government are encouraged to share and publish the information and data they have with the public, while also making it readily available.”

He added that the idea is so the public can easily identify and download data sets that they are interested in, and then analyse those data sets to identify new opportunities for areas of innovation.

The data.gov.bn, which will only be launched on Monday, December 1, is a centralised portal where government agencies can publish non-sensitive and non-personal data that they wish to share with the public such as statistics or reports.

Currently the portal contains over 300 data sets that have been contributed by the Department of Economic Planning and Development (JPKE), the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources (MIPR).

The project manager added that the public may visit data.gov.bn to search for and download any information published on the portal, and assured the public that they will be actively encouraging all government and also private agencies to regularly publish their data on the portal.

While the improved E-Darussalam Portal was re-launched yesterday in conjunction with the 21st Civil Service Day Celebration at the International Convention Centre (ICC) with an upgraded look, design, template and also two new features that is aimed to provide convenience, ease of use and efficiency to the users.

The portal gov.bn or better known as E-Darussalam portal, first launched in 2011, is a government one-stop-portal where citizens can apply for governmental services such as paying for their electricity bills and renewing their vehicle road tax, while also providing government information such as His Majesty’s titah, circulars, speeches and policies to name a few.

The new portal is bilingual, with the option of Malay or English language, and is divided into four categories; which are Government, Citizen, Business and Visitor.

The two new features of the E-Darussalam Portal are the Citizen Centre and the Disucssion Forums.

According to the project manager of E-Darussalam Portal, the citizen centre integrates all the government e-services under one portal, comprising online applications, online forms and downloadable forms, and has a total of 38 e-services and 107 downloadable forms.

The Discussion Forum is aimed at increasing the government’s interaction with citizens in relation to specific topics that will grow, however it was emphasised that to post on the discussion forum the individual would need to be registered in the portal, denying any anonymous posts.

In a statement by EGNC since July 2011 till October 2014, they had recorded a total of 13,896 registered users and around 9,955 activated accounts.

The Brunei Times