Shawren Singh
understanding of the key issues required to make e‐Government a success and it also detracts from the ability to be able to conceptualise what the benefits may be. These inappropriate project management approaches may under prepare the stakeholders to receive the benefits of the new system. Inappropriate project management approaches further complicates an already complex ICT project. As stakeholders are both internal and external to the project, it becomes a difficult task to ensure that the project satisfies the various needs of the community of stakeholders( Juciute, 2007; Kamal, Weerakkody, & Irani, 2011).
2.2 Relationships between key actors
In the context of government departments, civil servants influenced by their ministers may attempt to be agents of technology change. It has been known that ministers issue directives to their departments to implement particular systems within a pre‐defined time period often attached to their term of office( Mooij, 2007; Sudan, 2002). The ICT personnel, who do not wish to disappoint the minister, hastily try to develop solutions and in their endeavours may comprise the development process.
One objective of e‐Government is to deliver citizen‐centred services. To achieve e‐Government success requires active partnerships between government, citizens and the private sector( Farelo & Morris, 2006). It is demanding to succeed with e‐Government as there exists a complex set of dynamics with citizens and how they use government services. Heeks( 2006) reports that the total number of citizens that are actively using e‐ Government applications is relatively small. Millard( 2006) found in Europe that e‐Government users use government services on an average of 3.1 times a year compared with non‐e‐Government users, who only tend to use government services 1.5 times a year. In Africa there appears to be no reliable statistics on how frequently e‐Government applications are used by citizens.
Complexity in e‐Government applications pose a particular challenge( Purao & Desouza, 2011) to designers and developers of e‐Government applications. For example, Lips( 2008) reports on the Kafkabrigade project in the Netherlands. This projects attempts to tackle, what she refers to as, the‘ wicked’ problems or excessive administrative burdens from a citizen‐centric point of view. The Netherlands national government has launched a website( www. kafkabrigade. nl) where Dutch citizens can post their problems concerning disjointed government departments. Relationships within e‐Government structures are complex, for example government‐to‐citizen, citizen‐to‐government, government‐to‐government, government‐to‐business, business‐to‐government, government‐to‐employee, and employee‐to‐government( Annttiroiko, 2008). Governments adopting other countries e‐Government systems pose a problem in implementation. Heeks( 2003) points out that e‐Government systems should be country specific and not an off‐the‐shelf system from another country.
2.3 Drivers for change
Managing the development of an e‐Government application is challenging, thus Agarwal( 2007) points out that a top‐down approach has been followed by several e‐Government projects which has often not worked and the resultant system has not been able to fulfil the needs of the citizens despite the cost of these projects. Using the top‐down approach the managers have an understanding of the goals of the systems and the users may have a different understanding of the goals of the system. This introduces an understanding gap. Throughout the world there has been a considerable level of e‐Government activity and different counties have applied these technologies in different ways to achieve their objectives( United Nations, 2012). Despite various claims of success there is a lack of sharing of information on successes and failures of these e‐ Government applications( Agarwal, 2007).
The task of implementing successful e‐Government applications has been further complicated by the budgetary constraints which are being imposed by governments and e‐Government projects are being subjected to a higher degree of scrutiny to evaluate whether they are delivering the benefits which they have promised( Gupta, Bhattacharya, & Agarwal, 2007).
2.4 Gaps in understanding
A gap in understanding may be defined as a difference between senior management ' s understanding and or potential citizens ' understanding and the way in which these understandings are received and acted upon by ICT professionals. The problem of understanding gaps in the perceptions related to investment in ICT systems
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