HCMCity (VNA) - HCM City authorities plan to expand e-governmentservices this year, the Vice Chairman of the city’s People’s Committee saidduring a recent teleconference on administrative reform.

TranVinh Tuyen said the city targeted having 40-50 percent of public servicesonline this year, with all state agencies from the city to grassroots levelssetting up a system to collect opinions from the public.

Allcity government offices will have to reduce the number of delayed applicationfiles by 50 percent, and offices that harass individuals or enterprises will bestrictly punished.

Thecity’s Department of Information and Communication will also be expected to useelectronic signatures and connect all city government offices’ websites, hesaid.

Thecity provides 1,700 online level-2 public services, 426 level-3 services, and46 level-4 services. Level-1 services are not provided online.

Thecity expects all online services to provide necessary information aboutadministrative procedures.

Level-2services allow people to download and fill out application forms and send themdirectly via the internet or post office.

Level-3services allow people to pay charges, if necessary, and receive results via theinternet, while level 4 receives results via the internet or post office.

ColonelNguyen Van Anh, head of the city police’s immigration division, said thatinitially 3,000 people had applied for passports on peak days.

Hesaid that the division had issued passports via the internet at level 3 sinceAugust 2015.

However,after three months of implementation of issuing passports via the internet,only 4-6 percent of people have applied online, he said.

SinceFebruary of last year, the immigration division has increased communicationsabout the service to the public, with the aim of increasing the number ofonline applications to 74 percent.

Twelvehours after application, the person will receive results, thus saving time andtransport costs.

Lastyear, the immigration division provided 153,000 passports.

Anhsaid the procedures had helped to prevent corruption and improve administrativeprocedures.

LeHoai Trung, deputy head of the city’s Department of Home Affairs, said thatmany departments and people’s committees in districts had not updatedadministrative procedures or had provided insufficient information.

Severalgovernment offices and people’s committees have carried out administrativeprocedures slowly via the one-door online portal, Trung said.

Therate of feedback on public administration services has been rather high. FromApril to November last year, 2,857 people evaluated the quality ofadministrative procedures via the websites of city departments and postalservices.

Moreover,more than 30,000 attendees were surveyed by the city’s Institute forDevelopment Studies via telephone or directly interviewed, according to Trung.

Ofthese, more than 94 percent were satisfied about the city’s administrativeprocedures, with the remaining 5.89 percent dissatisfied.

Tuyếnsaid the city would improve its hotline quality so that feedback from residentscould be received in a timely fashion.

Thecommittee has assigned the Department of Home Affairs to work with the VietnamFatherland Front to monitor city government offices’ activities.

Thecity will also organise conferences for enterprises to introduce their ITproducts online, he said.

Inaddition, leaders of city government offices will receive commendations forproviding quality online public services, and more online meetings will becarried out, he added.-VNA