Old-school Romanians still nervous of information superhighway

At the beginning of last year, Romania ranked last in the European Union regarding the implementation of electronic governance solutions. Since then, the Ministry of Communications says much has been done in terms of drafting a national strategy to bring the country’s state institutions into the 21st century, with the e-Romania project in the implementation stage at the time of writing. The only question is: are Romanians ready to join the information superhighway?

Otilia Haraga

In short, what the e-Romania platform is meant to achieve is “to move the payment office onto the user’s computer,” the Ministry of Communications tells Business Review. When this project is finished, people will be able to make requests, hear decisions, check and pay their taxes and find information without having to stand in queues and put themselves at the mercy of public servants. Moreover, all the services on this platform can be accessed on the internet around the clock. “The main purpose of the e-Romania strategy is to save citizens’ time: in terms of how little time it takes them to find information, submit requests and obtain the necessary documents and how quickly they can pay their taxes,” say ministry representatives.

However, there are two sides to the coin. And when dealing with the informatization of the public administration, both what is done at the level of the authorities and what happens at the level of the public must be taken into consideration. The reality at this point is that most Romanians still prefer the old ways: they still use cash to pay their bills. More precisely, only 6 percent of Romanians use a card to do so, a GfK study found. The research was carried out by interviewing 1,000 people who were allowed to give multiple answers. The majority of the interviewees said they prefer to go to the office of the suppliers to pay their utilities bills, or alternatively, to the post office or the bank cash point.

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“The method they mostly go for is payment directly at the office of the suppliers, with 77 percent of people between 18 and 65 who pay the household bills resorting to this. Other methods of payment are: at the post office (39 percent of respondents) and at bank cash points (25 percent),” reads the GfK study. Only 5 percent of bills payers use ATMs, 2 percent use internet banking, and 11 percent pay their bills through available services in stores or gas stations, shows the study.

The problem may lie in the degree of internet use among the population, although this is constantly improving. The Ministry of Communications has completed the National Broadband Strategy to which it allotted EUR 84 million of European funds.

The most recent report from the National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) found that the number of connections to fixed broadband internet registered at the end of last year was 12 percent higher than in the same period in 2008. On December 31, 2009, there were 2.8 million connections to fixed broadband internet, of which 2.5 million were supplied to individuals. At the same time, the penetration of fixed broadband internet per 100 inhabitants was 13.1 percent, and 34.2 percent per 100 households. Moreover, the number of active connections to broadband mobile internet was 2.5 million at the end of 2009, which represented a 66 percent growth compared to the value registered at the end of 2008. In January 2010, the average penetration rate of fixed broadband internet was 24.8 percent, a growth of 2 percent from the beginning of 2009.

“Since Romanians are more and more attracted by the use of broadband internet and mobile internet, we estimate that this segment will continue its growth over the next period, which will determine the growth in the degree of penetration at a national level,” says Catalin Marinescu, president of ANCOM.

Meanwhile, technology is coming down to the street and people are adjusting to this new development. Recently, the Bucharest City Hall installed four large tourist information touch screens in one of the busiest areas in Bucharest, the Universitate passage. The touch screens are meant to meet tourists’ needs, containing maps of the city and of the streets, sightseeing points in Bucharest and cultural events – but why they post information only in Romanian remains a mystery. However, these touch screens have been a welcome sight, especially among young people.

e-Romania – a national strategy

At the beginning of last year, Romania ranked last in the EU for the implementation of electronic governance solutions. The Ministry of Communications says that since then, substantial progress has been made. On the list of achievements, the ministry mentions the realization of the e-Romania strategy, which “for the first time stipulates a coherent manner for developing IT services in the administration.”

The first two stages of this project have already been started and by the end of 2010, the portal for all localities in Romania will be finished, which will cover all areas of interest: administration, the business environment, education, health, tourism, culture, geography, religion, history and sport. Through this portal, citizens can also follow the rate and manner in which a project in their neighborhood is completed.

The cost of the e-Romania project is approximately EUR 500 million. Of this sum, EUR 400 million is structural funds, the rest being other types of non-reimbursable funds, public-private partnerships, outsourcing and concession of services, etc.

For the first stage of e-Romania, the public auction was won by a consortium formed of Sysware, Totalsoft, Provision, Star Storage, Softwin and Teamnet. For the second stage, the works were awarded to Omnilogic after a bid.

There are 20 different types of services that are considered minimal at the level of the EU. Every two years, ministers have to assume an e-governing agenda, including a plan of action. The last such plan was adopted last year in Malmo, Sweden, at the e-Governance conference.

The e-Romania strategy approved by the government aims to achieve 300 operational services by the end of 2011 and a further 600 by the end of 2013. So far, the Ministry of Communications has financed, through structural funds, 168 public electronic services worth over nearly EUR 150 million (RON 600 million). Half of these will be available by the end of this year, and the rest by the end of next year. These projects are part of the e-Romania strategy.