| There are now 20 electronic kiosks in Colima, where citizens can pop in and immediately access a range of local government information, from school reports to tax certificates |
 |
s
one of Mexico’s smallest states, Colima
has the advantage over its bigger neighbours of being able to roll out
IT networks and reach more people relatively quickly.
Colima, at 2,106 square miles, represents
only 0.3 per cent of the total Mexican territory. It is the fourth smallest
state, after Tlaxcala, Morelos and Aguascalientes. Its economy is based
on agriculture and the majority of its population of around 530,000
work on the land – around half the world’s lemon oil, used
in perfume, is produced in Colima.
But the state is rapidly adapting to e-government
through the installation of Kioscos de Servicios de Gobierno, a series
of kiosks where a range of information, from birth certificates to property
documents, can be requested and accessed electronically. There are now
more than 20 such kiosks in Colima.
|
||
|
Fernando Moreno Peña, the State Governor, says:
“We thought that people should have access to government services
in a flexible, dynamic way.”
Mr Moreno, who was Dean of the University of Colima for eight years,
believes that if a society wants to develop, its people must be able
to access the range of information that is now widely available through
new technology. It was his experience of overseeing the development
of the university’s IT systems that helped him lay the groundwork
for a state government IT network accessible to all.
The concept of local government kiosks
was adapted from the university experience. “The government was
able to develop the idea, using the university as a base, as this is
where it all began,” he says. “We really do have an information
culture in our educational community. There are grants for students
so they can acquire their own computer equipment, and the professors
have been able to develop the sort of computer systems they need.
“One of the projects was to take the
university outside the classroom using fibre-optic cables – we
can now offer its services to the city of Colima and people can access
its electronic library from their homes.
“We’re applying this now to our
government offices; we’ve developed a programme whereby local government
workers can have their own computer equipment. We try to involve everybody,
and this is going well because we work as a team.”
The kiosk service is free to all Colima’s inhabitants. Mr Moreno
explains: “We didn’t think many of them would learn how to
use the system if there were costs involved. Now, for example, if you
want your son’s school report card, you can just go to a kiosk.
You can request a birth certificate or a property tax certificate without
even having to go to the town hall.
“Of course, we had to modernise and
digitalise our data bases, from births, deaths and marriages to divorces
and property rights, before we could do any of this. So far, we have
digitalised 160 years’ worth of records and this has enabled us
to offer an immediate service.
“The whole idea is to bring services to the people, so they don’t
have to come to the government offices. In this way, the government
is going to the people and enabling them to carry out business in their
own communities.”
There is also a programme to install computer
systems in the schools, with particular emphasis on providing poorer
communities with the same educational opportunities as richer areas.
Colima now has one of the highest levels of education in the country.
“We are going to be the first state in the country where the whole
population has access to the internet,” adds Mr Moreno. n
[email protected]