Administrative reform will not be very effective if informationtechnology is not applied, a Ho Chi Minh City leader has warned.

Speakingat a meeting with the city People's Council on July 10, Deputy Chairmanof the People's Committee Le Manh Ha said information technology andadministration should be closely linked, and pointed to the Republic ofKorea, which he said has achieved such good social and economicdevelopment thanks to their investment in information technology.

"It will be a great challenge to serve the city of 10 million people without information technology."

Formany years administrative reform has only partly made use ofinformation technology and so the results have been moderate, he said.

LeHoai Trung, Deputy Director of the Department of Home Affairs, who wasquestioned by deputies of the municipal People’s Council about theeffectiveness of reform, said the time it takes for registering thecivil status of a child under six has been shortened to five days fromnearly a month.

"People needed to visit several times forcompleting the procedures. Now they need to come just once. We work withthe post office to send documents home."

This model would also be applied in other sectors, he said.

Hespoke about putting administrative works online so that citizens do nothave to visit government offices and queue up for a long time.

NguyenThi Quyet Tam, Chairwoman of People's Council, said the Department ofTax has received some praise from the public for administration reform,but there are still a lot of complaints.

Le Xuan Duong, deputyhead of the department, said his agency gets more than 100 millionapplications a year, but admitted that "administration reform is verynecessary, especially during the global integration period."

Inthe past companies and individuals had to declare their tax liability 12times a year, but now they have to do it only four times, he said.

Completingprocedures for a tax refund has come down to six days from 15, and taxregistration, to three days from five, he said.

"To simplifyprocedures and reduce the waiting time, the use of informationtechnology is vital. The department has a pilot programme to declare taxonline.

"Around 132,000 enterprises in the city have registered to declare tax online."

Accordingan official from the City’s Department of Information andCommunication, the one-door digital system installed in all districtsallows officials to work online.

But its efficacy has been found wanting because it has not been linked down to the ward level, he said.

Hasaid HCM City has the best information technology system in the countrybut its officials' IT knowledge is among the worst, and blamed it onthe attitude of senior officials.

While all departments anddistricts in the city are provided with digital mail boxes, their rateof use is only 40 percent, he pointed out.

"We are given a very good car, but we do not know how to drive it."

Tam concurred with him, saying application of information technology is an important factor in administrative reform.

"Theoffice of the People's Council sends emails to departments anddistricts, but we do not get replies. So we have to make phone calls."

Hasaid some documents remain in limbo for up to two years, and called forreducing paperwork. The city is trying to bring all administrativeprocedures online, including registration of civil status andbusinesses, obtaining land use rights, and issue of work permits forforeigners.-VNA