I am from Botswana and even though there has been some progress in the performance of our public services, they still remain somewhat clumsy and unproductive. Recently, a Performance improvement coordinator, Attorney General's Chambers, approached me about how to encourage and propagate the use of information technology in the provision of various government services.
I propose that Debate be modeled in such a way that it enhances the decision making process especially in the public service departments. This would be in order to make it more democratic while at the same time being effective and efficient. During the meetings i have been alowed to observe, vague discussions were held and tasks were allocated to the parties present on matters which i felt needed more delicate attention. For instance, the decision to put a workstation infront of every office employee or to use an application software in a particular department.
I understand that there is the risk of overlapping into ones duties as per thier job description but won't holding a carefully structured debate about the matter create a more synergic environment, especially between the departments with intertwined objectives and operations?
More ideally, I propose that we find a way in which debate can be used to fairly snip away the red tape and bureaucratic processes that waste alot of time and inconvinience a lot of people. We spend hours to days to months to years on waitinglists for things such as land, national identity cards passports, and various other services while we have the resource capability as well as the technology to provide for them more conveniently.
The benefit of such a model will not only be the control but also the procounter to corruption by limiting the selfish need to act out of protocol and procedure!
I guess that depends upon your definition of democratic. I believe that the statement democratic is implicit of free choice. If these measures help increase and encourage democracy, then why not? I think that it is ridiculous to have waiting lists for things that should be done. If the technology to fix things exist, then why would we not attempt to fix them? In order to promote information share technology, we must inform the public of the cost and stress the benefits. There is a risk in everything, but it is important to do what is nessessary to present both sides and allow for equal voice.
