The Measurement of e-government Readiness in Sri Lanka: Survey Perspectives

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1 The Measurement of e-government Readiness in Sri Lanka: Survey Perspectives D. J. Punchihewa Department of Information Technology and Decision Science Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka. Abstract This paper discusses e-government in Sri Lanka by reviewing the potentiality and usage in selected government sector organizations. In this study, it also identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of e-government in public sector organizations. 167 different institutions that have web presence were selected for the study to cover the total of 572 government sector organizations. Different institutions from ministries, departments and statutory bodies were included in the study. 31 out of 167 institutions responded with answers to questionnaires. The response rate was low at 20%. Awareness of e-government in public sector is very low but potentiality to develop e- Government in these organizations is high according to the survey findings. However available resources were not at the satisfactory level and most of these resources were under utilized. It further reveals that they have also been using and intranet in addition to maintaining web sites, and less than 5% of total web sites provide information in local languages. KeyWords: Information and Communication Technology, e-commerce, e-government, web presence, , Internet, LAN, WAN. 1. Introduction Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed organizations, businesses, and societies for decades. Many countries in the world are now using ICT to change the way government works. In 1990 s the new technological advancements in ICT industry paved the way towards the new business horizon of e-commerce (EC) mainly for the private sector organizations. E- Commerce revolutionized the world by adopting innovative and creative use of ICT. As a result the private sector not only satisfied their customers but also surprised them by reducing cost and time, which led the delivering excellent service to consumers. As a result now people are expecting the same kind of service from their governments. Many innovative governments in the world have identified the need and try to deliver excellent service by adopting ICT in government operations. This process is called Electronic Government (EG). Various organizations and individuals define e-government in various means. In simple terms, e-government is the process of government organizations working collectively to use ICT as to provide citizens and enterprises with government services and information in an unprecedented manner. In this respect, the ultimate objective of e-government is to provide better information and services to individuals and businesses. However e-government should also make citizens life easier by providing anytime, anywhere and anyhow services and information to the public and businesses. In this context, e-government is all about redefining relationships among government, government organizations, citizens and businesses by systematic utilization of ICT technologies. E-Government refers to the systematic use by government agencies of information and communication technologies (such as wide area networks, the internet and mobile computing) that have the ability to transform relations with citizens businesses and government [1]. In this respect e- Government is much broader term. It is not merely computerization of government organizations. It should also goes beyond the limit of having just online presence. E-government is more than just a government web site on the internet [2]. E-Government resulted unprecedented achievements in productivity, by lowering cost and enhancing customer satisfaction for reengineered systems in countries like South Korea, India, USA, Sweden, Singapore etc. Therefore countries all around the world are now trying to reap the benefits of e-government. Sri Lanka also initiated her e-government endeavors in

2 2003 by introducing the e-sri Lanka Program. This paper is based on studying the e-government readiness of Sri Lanka. This study assesses the awareness of e- government and its technologies in public sector organizations. It also discloses e-government readiness of public institutions by highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with regard to electronic government in the country. 2. Applications of e-government E-government is not just a tool to automate old practices of existing government. However it rather increases effectiveness, efficiency and overall productivity of government sector by offering citizen based services. The provision of citizen-centered services is a systematic process, which cover several stages. Center for Democracy & Technology and InfoDev states that there are three phases of E- government: Phase One: Publish - Using ICT to expand access to Government Information Phase Two: Interact Broadening civic participation in Government Phase Three: Transact Making Government Services available online [3]. Dissemination of information to general public is the first phase in e-government. Generally government in a country generate large amount of information. In a country like ours it is always a challenge to make sure that people receive the correct piece of information at the appropriate time. Making information readily available to the general public is a way of minimizing inefficient bureaucracy and corruption [4]. Published government web sites would disseminate essential information for the public as broad as possible for 24 hours for a day, 7 days per week and 365 days for a year without the user having to travel to government offices. As far as Sri Lanka is concerned some innovative public sector institutions have gone online within the last few years. The vast majority of them are still at typical entry-level efforts [5]. The second phase of E-government is making interactions between government and the public. In this stage government sector organizations and policy makers would be able to engage in interactive communication with the general public to enhance their participation in governing. At initial stages this would be limited to an e- mail form to receive information which could be further enhanced to feed back from citizen in the form of comments on legislative or policy proposals. In recent years vast development in telecommunication industry has become a platform for interactive electronic government in the country. In 2002 Cell phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants was 2.38 [6]. Central Bank Report 2003 states that the subscriber base of fixed access telephones increased by 7 per cent to 939,013, while mobile cellular phone connections rose by 462,000 or 50 per cent (on top of the 40 per cent increase in 2002) [7]. Today the leading mobile service provider in the country has reached the one millionsubscriber mark. As far as possibilities for mobile computing is concerned this is a dramatic improvement. The advantages of mobile phones are wide spread coverage, affordable prices and ease of use. Especially with 3rd and 4th generation mobile phones it is not a difficult task to take e-government to remote villages in the country. In Bangladesh Grameen Phone has provided access to the world for millions of the rural people with mobile phones. The third phase is related to making government services available online. That is facilitating citizen to conduct transactions online. Not only countries like Singapore, Korea, Australia and New Zealand to offer much of their government services based on Internet, but also developing countries like India especially Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and other regional governments provide more and more online services to the general public. According to the Center for Democracy & Technology and InfoDev, innovation such as citizen service kiosks located in shopping centers in Brazil or portable government computers that can be carried into rural pockets of India bring e-government directly to the citizens of developing nations [8]. The advantages of facilitating online transactions are cost savings, accountability, and productivity. This is because e- Government process will streamline existing bureaucratic and labor-intensive procedures, and that would save cost and increase productivity as a result. 3. Measuring e-government Readiness ICT remarkably changed the way people live and work today. The application of Communication Technology (ICT) in today s information society is vastly different from that of the pre World Wide Web era [9]. However the application and usage of ICT in public sector of Sri Lanka is minimal in government organizations. The worst scenario is, even government institutions presently using computers do not really integrate them into their operations. Greenberg states that the government already uses computers in a modest way. Much of this is for traditional stand-along workstation applications, or for application within a single department. There is little coordination or acrossunit planning. As a result, the applications do not sufficiently yield productivity, effectiveness gains or enhanced service to the public [10]. In this study e-government readiness of public organizations (ministries, departments and statutory

3 bodies), is measured by accessing their computer usage, application of selected e-government tools, and also assessment of readiness with e-technologies. Finally it will be analyzed e-government readiness of public sector organizations by using SWOT analysis. In what ways could e-government be implemented in the country and what strategies should be adopted? This is the major challenge that faces Sri Lanka today. In order to find solution for these critical issues it is paramount important to do an assessment on e- Government readiness in the country. 4. Research Methodology The data was derived from a survey of government sector institutions undertaken between April and June The aim of the survey was to reveal e-government readiness in public sector institutions and to identify factors associated with strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in respective organizations. Institutions from ministries, departments and statutory bodies were all included in the sample. Table 1. Government institutions by Category Category Sample Size Institution Responded Ministries Departments Statutory Bodies Total Percentage (%) Questionnaires were ed to a sample of 167 organizations (Table 1), but only received one as a reply. In each case questionnaires were sent to the executive level officers in the institution. The next step taken was to personally meet them and hand over the questionnaire. A sample of 31 responded positively from 167 questionnaires. Response rate was 20%, this response is on the low side but acceptable in the prevailing condition of the country. Two reasons can be considered as explanation for this low rate of return. First reason is that institutions that have low e- government applications may be reluctant to participate, because they don t want to reveal their status in e- Government. Second, institutions that are using sophisticated technologies, do not want to reveal information as they treated them more critical and sensitive in nature, especially the statutory bodies fall under this category. The questionnaire consisted of four different sections. The first section was related to internal infrastructure. External infrastructure was the subject matter of the second section of the questionnaire. The third section dealt with information interchange among organizations. And finally in the fourth section of the questionnaire was in for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of e-government in respective organizations. This questionnaire was developed according to the author s literature review and knowledge gained by studying e- government models of different countries. The institutions in the sample were selected from the official government web site Institutions from ministries, departments, and statutory bodies having web presence were included in the sample. It was hoped that the cross section sample might be able to provide some indication of different categories, though this did not prove to be viable due to insufficient sample returns. 5. Survey Findings 5.1 The criteria used to rate e-government readiness E-Government readiness is refers to the ability of government to successfully implement and carry out government services over the Internet. Government Readiness describes the readiness of government to participate in and drive e-agenda [11]. The measurement of readiness is done through investigating awareness and usage of technologies related with e-government. According to table 2, computer usage among government sector employees is low due to lack of resources. This is partly a result of the excessive number of employees in government sector. There is no clear vision and strategy towards e-government in these institutions. This situation has been described by Samaranayake as Absence of vision and delivery of vision [12]. However in successful implementations like Andhra Pradesh, from the very beginning planed everything based on the stated vision and the objectives of e-government. Recognizing the need for technologyenabled service delivery and, as a part of its e- Government strategy, GoAP has initiated an innovative broad based, enterprise wide approach to service delivery [13]. In Sri Lanka the author, has witnessed many instances that employees were idling without having proper duties while this survey was conducted. The excessive number of employees in these institutions was definitely a disadvantage and even be a threat when implementing e-government in the country.

4 5.2 Computer Usage Computer utilization is low in government sector organizations. Lack of necessary equipments and infrastructure are major bottleneck. In general government organizations, besides few exceptions, are not front-runners for new technology. Even there are apparent advantages of applying e-government the implementation is difficult. Bhatnagar states that potential is recognized but implementation is difficult [14]. According to the table 2 the highest computer usage per day is 3.5 hours by department s employees. Lowest figure is 2 hours by employees in statutory bodies. However more than one third of statutory body employees (6384) have access to computers. On the contrary less than one tenth of employees from departments do have access to computers. Therefore, there is vast difference between employees of departments and statutory bodies in accessing computers. As a whole, almost all institutions under the study use computers in their day-to-day operations. This can be treated as strength of government institutions when implementing e-government in the country. Table 2. Average computer usage Category A B C D Ministries Departments Statutory bodies A = Total Number of Employees (all levels) B = Total Number of computers C = Number of Employees who have access to computers D = Average Computer usage (B*8/C) 5.3 Application of e-government Tools Table 3 below shows four selected application tools in e-government. Some tools identified below might be seen as insignificant as they represent null values. However the results do clearly highlight the importance of such applications within the particular organizational context for example statutory bodies. It is apparent that public organizations in the country are not in the front using most of the tools in e-government. This is a result of lack of proper leadership in public sector institutions with regard to e-government. One reason for this situation is that e-government in country like ours is most often an externally driven process. Saxena states that implications of e-government are slightly different for developing countries. Whereas public sector reforms or the NPM movement in industrialized countries was internally driven (as in U.K., U.S.A. etc) in most developing countries the public sector reforms were externally driven, through World Bank and other donor institutions [15]. Majority of respondents in the survey didn t know much about the usage of e-government, WAN or LAN. They had knowledge only on office automation related applications. Some respondents were more critical regarding IT training, facilities and equipments. One lecturer from a leading university said that even though he had to teach students IT the muchneeded industry exposure was not provided. The lack of support, enthusiasm and encouragement from prevailing organizational structures, for higher studies and lack of professional qualifications in IT were major bottlenecks to develop ICT in government sector, according to some participants. Table3.The application of selected e- Government tools as a percentage (%) Category E F G H Ministries Departments Statutory Bodies E = Use of for information dissemination within the organization F = Use of internet for information requirements G = Web enabled information provision to public H = Web enabled grievance services to public However government institutions, which use these tools already, gained the competitive advantage by having IT savvy culture within the organization. The research on the web survey of government institutes revealed that some of the institutions are taking a more innovative approach to doing business with their citizens [16]. This situation is an advantage for e-government implementation. Very low rate of Internet and usage in government ministries and departments is a weakness on the other hand. However there are possibilities to further strengthen ICT application in these institutions. Government sector organizations policies may negatively affect on application and usage of new technologies in the public sector. However some tools in e-government are widely used by statutory bodies. Government ministries and departments

5 adaptation to e-government is slow, as a result of lack of utilization of new technology related tools. 5.4 Technology Readiness of e-government Table 4 shows, six different technologies were found to be important in using e-government in Sri Lanka. It is worth mentioning that some of the elements identified below might be seen as less significant. That is a result of lack of government sector strategies and wrong policies implemented in these intuitions regarding new technology. For an example internet usage among government sector employees is at minimum level because, it is restricted to access the internet. Table 4. Readiness with e-technologies Form Present usage (%) Office Automation 77% 42% Internet 6% Web Presence 74% LAN 74% WAN 3% However it is important to note that 77% of government sector intuitions using some form of automation. It is also important to mention that 74% of organizations under the study have web presence. More than 80% of respondents said that it was needed to provide web based information in local languages. However application of local languages was at extremely lower stage. Less than 5% of Sri Lankan public institutions provide information in Sinhala or Tamil language. This is a major weakness in e-government in Sri Lanka, and that would result a barrier to take e- Government to the ordinary citizens of the country. Further more 74% of surveyed institutions were having Local Area Networks. This is again strength in government institutions transferring them to electronic world. There are encouraging developments amidst lack of resources as well as miss opportunities with underutilized resources in terms of e-government in the country. In this context it is a question whether the country to maximally utilize and exploit advantageous situation with certain technologies. As Dravidrajhu [18] mentioned The official document on e-sri Lanka does not state the services government wants to offer over the internet. However, it has been mentioned in the e-government Policy document the vision as, Innovative e- Government for empowered citizen [19]. It has not been stated what strategy to implement in order to achieve the stated vision. This is a major weakness in the policy planning of Sri Lankan e-government endeavor. Figure1. SWOT analysis on e-government Readiness of Sri Lankan Organizations Strengths Office automation Local Area Networks High rate of web presence Willingness to adopt ICT Opportunities Academic institutions' Training IT savvy culture Foreign grants Foreign technical assistance. Local experts' service Transaction facilitation Interactive services Weaknesses Low computer usage Lack of resources Excessive staff Low rate of internet usage Low rate of usage No connection to WAN's Wrong policies Poor private sector training Lack of trained employees No access to remote areas Resistance to change Threats No clear vision Idling employees Lack of leadership Minimum local Language usage Lack of strategy No e-government champions in the Cabinet No orientation for employees Poor public awareness Political Negligence It is again significantly low figure when organizations connected to Wide Area Networks. There is no real commitment to facilitate people with access to e- government in remote areas. On the contrary in India, many successful e-government applications by regional governments have focused their serious attention on remote access through networking. Studies that have described e-government activity in India have focused on the extent of wide coverage within many states in India completely networked [20]. As far as Sri Lanka is concerned this is a major weakness in implementing e- Government as infrastructure readiness is at very lower level in remote areas. As a result there are opportunities to develop e-government access to people in remote areas. If government sector neglect this need this would definitely become a threat for successful e-government implementation in the country. Government sector institutions usage of Internet is low as 6% due to restrictions imposed by authorities. On

6 the other hand idling employees might abuse these resources if they were allowed without restrictions. However, presently most of the government sector institutions are limited themselves only to have web presence. While most of the e-government initiatives are currently focused on providing information and basic services, we believe that success of e-government will largely depend on providing value added services to citizens [21]. Hence, it is paramount important to expand the application of e-government on service delivery and transaction facilitation for the public. Provision of online services and transaction facilitation are opportunities in terms of e-government in Sri Lanka. Some institutions use Internet as a resource for their internal information requirements. However, these services are most of the time limited only to administrative and managerial level staff. Minor staffs in some organizations were provided with training in computer usage. Unfortunately however most of them did not believe that they were given proper training or enough time to involve in practical aspects. According to some respondents they were given shortterm training and that was limited only to have orientation with one famous software package. Some respondents mentioned that they personally arranged training in private sector organizations was wastage of money. Here we should raise the question of quality in ICT education by private sector organizations. It is pity that even there were many well qualified government institutions like universities, training institutes to provide ICT training in the country. Few of them were used to train government sector employees with these facilities. Apart from that web presence of these institutions most of the time is a result of isolated attempt by one or more employees. However the e-srilanka program has given much needed impetus for IT savvy culture in these institutions. As a result, most institutions had some online presence for last two years but only limited numbers of them are still continuing after the fall of last regime. On the other hand negative attitude towards e- Government was another major issue but this is purely due to the lack of understanding on e-government. One administrative director in a department with training in Korea under e-sri Lanka project said that he did not believe that Sri Lanka could implement e-government successfully. The reason he pointed out was that even in countries like Korea older people in remote areas face problems so that e-government was not a good option for us. It is not realistic to expect 100% accuracy and success rate form any system, and this is the attitude of decisive employees in government sector with regard to e-government. Majority of the executive level officers in the public sector didn t have a correct idea regarding e- Government. Therefore as a priority, highly politicized and bureaucratic organization structures should be reorganized in such a way to successfully accommodate e-government in the country. There must be a collective effort to achieve this goal by academics, policy makers, lending organizations, researchers, business community and society as a whole to reap the benefits of e- Government to the people of this country. 6. Conclusion In this study it has been revealed that 77% of government sector institutions are using some form of automation. The data processing, spread sheets, data bases and presentations related applications were highly utilized by the organizations under the study. As a result, selected group of employees in the public sector had frequent access to computers in their day to day work. Average computer usage for selected employees in government departments is high although other employees had relatively low access to computers. In the case of government ministries, the rate of computer usage was low. For statutory bodies, although the total computer utilization was higher per employee usage was also low. The study further revealed that statutory bodies and departments in the country involved in web enabled information provision and web enabled grievance services to the public. 74% of organizations under the study had continued with web presence. However as a whole, in Sri Lanka only 167 intuitions have web presence out of total 572 public sector organizations. The majority of these institutions limited themselves for provision of web based information and most of their web sites were not updated regularly. For an example Sri Lanka s official web portal has listed 42 government ministries but only 14 ministries do have real web presence. With the change of government in April 2004, no visible change is seen in e-government activities concerned, though the e-srilanka program has been continued with the support of the new government. This may be so because other policy changes that are kept the authorities occupied. It is envisaged that the reengineering government program under e-sri Lanka would help change the status and take Sri Lanka towards rapid development with e-government success. Therefore, it is paramount important to change present government s attitude towards e-government in a more positive manner in order achieve total transformation from the public sector. Apart from that, there is a negative attitude towards e- Government in the public sector. Most executive level employees are not IT savvy, so that they do not want to provide leadership in introducing or implementing e- Government. Gunatunge and Karunanayake state that, furthermore they do not like to change mainly because of the fear of loosing their existing power relationship with the rest of the employees. The existing bureaucratic

7 culture protects their political hegemony within as well as outside the organization [22]. This situation in the public sector is again highlighted by the low rate of response to the current study. Most of the government sector employees to whom the questionnaire was sent didn t even want to participate in a study of this nature. Overall, e-government applications in Sri Lanka is still at the initial stages limited to offering web based information, but no interactive or transaction facilitation can be witnessed. As a result the success rate of e- Government is also at very low level because people have no means of benefiting through these initiatives. For example, the Department of Immigration is treated as one of the successes having introduced computerized issue of passports. However, even today you find hundreds of people from remote areas in the country queuing in front of the Immigration Department in order to obtain their Passport amidst many hardships. On the other hand response towards citizen inquiries related with e-government is at a very low level. The government sector as a whole still don t believe in the potentiality of ICT in providing citizen centric government services. The author contacted some very important agencies on many occasions in order to obtain information for his ongoing research. Officials did not even acknowledge the receipt of s sent. Lack of transparency and responsibility may have influenced this unfortunate situation. However, as a priority this attitude problem has to be corrected in order to exploit the best results of e-government for Sri Lanka. In conclusion, we find that web presence and LAN connection alone do not guarantee public sector participation in e-government. To be successful in e- Government, public sector organizations should have the correct vision, leadership, and selected strategies to implement e-government with technologies such as wide area networks with access to internet, broad band access, mobile computing and more important wider usage of ICT through training and access to the community (employees as well as the public) in the country. To create this interconnected society, government needs to make intelligent use of interactive and networked information and communication technologies [23]. That would guarantee successful e- Government implementation within government organizations as well as in the country as a whole. 7. Future Studies There is an urgent need to do more and more researches on e-government in the country as to make sure country takes the correct path. Authors recommend to do research on ICT Training in the country by public and private sector organizations inline with e- Government, as this is a decisive factor in success and quality of e-government. Another important area to explore would be an e-government application by Divisional Secretariats. As Divisional Secretariats is the focal point in taking e-government for the benefit of ordinary citizens in Sri Lanka. Acknowledgement This paper would not have been a success without the helpful guidance, support, and encouragement from several people. I specially appreciate kind involvement of members of the academic and non academic staff at the University of Colombo School of Computing where I am involved in my MPhil studies. This paper could never have been undertaken without financial support from ADB. Therefore I like to convey my gratitude to Asian Development Bank and Dr. Ruwan Weerasinghe (Director, UCSC) for granting me an ADB scholarship. I am also grateful to my own family who has been very patient and supporting during the work with this paper. Most grateful I am to Jeevani and my colleagues at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Last but certainly not least, thoughts goes to my supervisor Prof. V.K. Samaranayake for his excellent support. Without his supervision, guidance and provision of much needed literature, this paper would not have been a success. References 1. Samaranayake, V.K., The Reality of Digital Government, paper presented at 22nd IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 2003 Available: f%20digital%20government_prof%20sam%20letter %20size.doc, (12/05/04) 2. Backus, M., E-governance and Developing Countries, Research Report No3, April2001 Available: pdf, (12/05/04). 3. (WWW1) Center for Democracy & Technology, InfoDev, The E-Government Handbook for Developing Countries, November,2002, Available: (18/05/04). (ebid1) 4. Ebid1, Center for Democracy & Technology and InfoDev 5. Carlos A.P.B., Government in the Information Age, National E-Government Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka. May 9-10, 2003.

8 6. Samaranayake, V. K., and Ratnathicam, I., Global Information Technology Report , Oxford University Press, pp Central Bank Report Available: chap1.pdf (22/07/04). 8. Ebid1, Center for Democracy & Technology, InfoDev 9. Asgarkhani, M., A Strategic Framework for Electronic Government, paper presented at 22nd IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July Available: amework%20for%20electronic%20government_me di%20asgarkani%20letter%20size.doc (21/05/04). 10. Greenberg, A., Lanfranco, S., Fernando, J. Country ICT Survey of Sri Lanka Greenberg ICT Services, May Silva de D., E-Government Path to Reality paper presented at 22nd IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July Available: Government%20Path%20to%20Reality_dileepa%20 de%20silva%20letter%20size.doc (17/05/04). 12. Samaranayake, V.K., Issues and Strategies of E- Government in Developing Countries, Available: ranayake%20abstract.htm (24/05/04) 17. Clift L., S. E-Government and Democracy,(14/03/04)Available: (14/06/04). 18. Davidrajhu, R. (2004) Planning e-government startup: a case study on e-sri Lanka, Electronic Government, Vol.1, No1, pp Government of Sri Lanka, Policy on e-government Preliminary Draft 9 th May Madan, S., Evaluating the Development Impact of E-government Initiatives: An exploratory framework, (ed) Gupta, M.P., Towards E-Government Management Challenges, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Ltd, 2004, pp Choudrie, J., and Weerakkody, V., Evaluating Global E-Government Initiatives: An Exploratory Study, (ed) Gupta, M.P., Towards E-Government Management Challenges, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Ltd, 2004, pp Gunatunge, R.S., and Karunanayake, M.M., Information and Communication Technologies for Enhancing Socio-Economic Development at Local Level in Sri Lanka : Issues, Changes and Strategies Available: pdf (11/10/04) 23. Badger, M., Johnston, P., Weeks,S.M., Wills, S., The Connected Republic Changing the Way We Govern, Cisco Systems, Inc (WWW3) Vision of e-government in Andhra Pradesh - Department of Information Technology & Communications, April (15/04/04) Available:unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/ public/documents/apcity/unpan pdf 14. Bhatnagar,S., Enabling E-Government in Developing Countries: From Vision to Implementation Available: egov/lweek/bhatnagar.pdf, (12/06/04). 15. Saxena, K.B.C., Towards Execellence in E- Governance, (ed) Gupta, M.P., Towards E- Government Management Challenges, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Ltd, 2004, pp Kumarawadu, P., Assessing and Benchmarking our Digital Readiness for e-government: Moving towards e-sri Lanka, paper presented at 22nd IT Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, July Available: 1, (12/04/04).