Discuss the Role of the ICT (Information Communication Technology) in Implementing the E Government in Zimbabwe

With the increasing use of the internet to perform organizational functions to deliver services to the public, the federal government saw the need to improve customer service in 2002. The enacted E-Government Act of 2002 required federal agencies utilizing information technology to become citizen focused, establish a chief information officer (CIO), develop and meet security requirement in accordance with the Federal Information Security Act (FISMA), protect confidential information, and support electronic government initiatives (Bolten, 2003). The legislation required agencies to develop their IT infrastructures to meet the needs of the public and link information systems agency-wide. Additionally, the conversion and management of electronic records would improve the communication and accessibility of information for the federal agency, employees, and the public.

Since the beginning of development of new technologies, the IT industry had a strong impact on daily basis people use, that were cause by modern information technology.

Technology is the final important term when leading a public agency toward becoming and remaining a high-quality public organization committed to excellence. Technology allows for the organizations or agencies to connect to the citizens. Berman (2006) states, “governments have focused on improving customer/citizen interactions with agencies through improved electronic access to information and services, thereby reducing costs and improving response times” (p.116). Technology can also assist with issues organizations may have regarding security and reliability.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution man has become more and more dependent on technology. The advancements in technology during the industrial revolution that started in the 1760’s in England transformed the economy of Europe from an agrarian, handicraft economy to an economy dominated by industry and machine manufacturing (Encyclopedia Brittanica, 2015). In the Microprocessor Revolution of the second half of the twentieth century, the microprocessor was created and since then businesses around the world have become more and more dependent in the use of computers for their daily operations (Mack, 2005). Such change brought on by the use of technology has influenced nearly everything we do in our daily lives. The world’s economy has changed

Advice on options for the use of digital technology to eliminate barriers to access to government information and services.

In addition, the government bodies are using the internet to communicate with people providing services from a distance such as banks , schools and health sections.

What has been the impact, positive and negative, of the Internet on the way we do business?

Improvement efforts should be primarily focused on fighting the digital divide in the population to achieve more digital inclusion. This would not only reduce social inequality, but would also increase the efficiency of E-government overall, since more people would be able to access its services online. Other efforts should be directed towards improving legal, regulatory and budgetary inflexibility in their framework to facilitate the further implementation of E-government applications. New laws on how to protect and secure data must be constituted to ensure the viability of E-government in the future. Lastly, the empowerment of the citizens should be addressed more directly and attributed a higher priority. Ultimately, E-government should lead to the empowerment of citizens in all branches of public

Information technology is an emerging concept and various organizations are adopting the concept in their businesses. In order to remain at the fore front in the current dynamic world, then an organization should adopt the various application of information technology. This will put the organization at the forefront in terms of innovation as well as give the organization a competitive advantage (Hitt & Robert, 2011, p.10).

The Information Revolution means it began with the digitization of individuals enterprises, which create networks of increasingly ubiquitous computers, mainframes in the 1950s and 1960s, mini-computers in the 1970s and 1980s, PCs in the 1980s and 1990s, in the half of 20th century, there were a dramatic changes of the digital, it outsource the other old-function: information management, the information revolution first start with Mechanical Calculating Devices at 1890 in U.S. census, than invented Turing’s Relay-Based Machine after that is the Vacuum Tube Compute, than is the first space launches which is Transistor-Based Machines, now it is Integrated Circuit Based PC (Kerschner E, n.d.). As a result it can reflect that before the information revolution it is a century of industrial management, which require more capital and labour. The information revolution ascending slowly till before but in the recent year it grow dramatically and in the future of the revolution, it may expected to explore the further step, like Three-Dimensional Chips, Optical computing, Nanotube circuitry, Crystalline Computing, DNA Computing or even more. Nowadays, information technology is a major part in the world, every people have a cell phone, laptop business use technology devices to communicate and storage the data, seems that the technology in the society are very important, it act a part of the human life, it is hard to live without the

Obviously, information system in Zanzibar and most developing nations like Kenya are facing serious challenges. These include: government policy, non-availability of fund, inadequate infrastructure and inadequate skill.

Government in developing countries must enforce good security framework for effective e-government in the public sector to create confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, transparency (reliable "proxy"). Management staff must integrate security control measures to safeguard ICT assets to meet the policy standard of information security (Alfawaz et al., 2008). Good security managements would restore confidence, erase fear and develop public “trust” in government thereby encouraging the public to embrace e-government services, create awareness and enforcing compliance.

The state of the present day economy is the result of a procedure of monstrous changes and advancement that started more than two centuries back. In spite of the fact that the modern worldview was an accomplishment as far as the overarching markets conditions, unmistakably Information and Communications Technologies ("ICT"), E-Commerce and Advancement in Software give the chance to drastically adjust the path in which people and undertakings can seek after their goals.

One of the most interesting factors of social transformations in the modern post- industrial society is the widespread influence of modern information technologies on society. There is no precise opinion about positive or negative effects of technologies on the development of society. It mostly depends on the people, who use them, and what purposes they pursue.

Welch, Hinnant, and Moon (2005) express the concern about the one way dissemination of information by E-Governments, instead of encouraging the dialog with the public. However they argue that there could be a variety of reasonable explanations of this one-way approach. Some of them: technology is not developed yet enough to provide convenient to-ways interaction; it can increase the workload on planning and requires a lot of structural and organizational changes, which can take more time to adjust, they also suggest that “it may be that managers are correct: citizens want ease of service and information first and interaction second”. (p. 387) Thus the first stage of E-Government implementation was focused on the convenient services’ delivery. And Government had succeeded in making a lot of interaction accessible and comfortable for citizens, which certainly contribute to its efficiency and may