icegov2012 proceedings

effective participation, voting equality, enlightened understanding,
and control of the policy agenda [7]. If the democratic and
participatory element of the ECP’s SMS application is gauged
with Dahl’s criteria, this application does seem to qualify at least
for one of Dahl’s five criteria. However, before dwelling upon the
details of this application, it seems necessary to give a brief
chronology of events that has eventually led ECP to undertake a
rather sensitive and careful task of voter registration and
verification via the m-government application.
3. E-GOVERNMENT SCENARIO IN
PAKISTAN
The Government of Pakistan started its chapter of e-government
in 2002 by forming a separate organisation under the Ministry of
Information Technology named Electronic Government
Directorate (EGD). EGD’s major tasks included to plan, prepare
and implement e-government projects in Pakistan and to provide
technical guidelines on the implementation of these projects at the
federal, provincial and district levels. Since 2005 EGD has also
put an e-government strategy and action plan for years 2005-2010,
which so far has not been revised, at least publicly. At the
beginning of millennium, offering a web portal remained the first
task for national governments and Pakistan’s one-stop-shop
solution was to initiate web portal of government ministries,
divisions, and its sub organisations accessible via Internet at
www.pakistan.gov.pk. The portal provided information about the
ministries and explained their functioning albeit in English – a
language which is only spoken and understood by a small
minority of a population of 185 million people. The portal, which
was revamped in 2008, does not yet offer or indicate any
interactive G2C service in order to qualify for the second stage
(transaction) of e-government model (by Layne & Lee) [18].
While the EGD together with Government of Pakistan was trying
to delve into e-government, a number of parallel initiatives started
in the G2C scenario in Pakistan. Due to deregulation in the
telecommunications sector, various telecom operators started their
services in Pakistan. Over the course of 10 years the low rates of
the mobile telecom sector found a strong audience all over the
country. The figures mentioned by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) clearly indicate that Pakistani
citizens prefer mobile phones to the internet. According to the
ITU statistics, mobile users in Pakistan increased from 0.21 users
in 2000 to 57.14 users per 100 inhabitants in 2010 [17]. As of
May 2012, the PTA puts the cellular mobile teledensity at 68.6%
making it the most highly penetrated South Asian country in this
regard.
The increased reliance on mobile phones made a number of
telecom operators in Pakistan realise the potential of mobile
penetration and they started offering G2C services by acting as a
middle agency. Currently, Norwegian telecom operator Telenor’s
easy Paisa service for the payment of utility bills and money
transfer is considered the most frequently used service, which has
triggered a new era of branchless banking in Pakistan. However, a
major development in e-government scenario that took place in
Pakistan is the formation of National Database Registration
Authority (NADRA). In order to digitise the population data, the
Ministry of Interior initiated a technical wing named as the
NADRA to develop Computerised National Identity Cards
(CNICs), which eventually became one of the first G2C electronic
public services. Over a number of years NADRA has initiated
other G2C projects as well. These projects include the
160
development of the electronic passport, driver’s license, birth
registration certificate and/or the vehicle identification and
tracking system. Pakistan moved beyond the web portal when in
2005 NADRA started a kiosk machine service in order to pay
utility bills. The idea behind kiosk machine was the lack of
internet penetration and possibility of mCommerce application on
official web portal. The kiosk machine service is now being
franchised and exists as a part of the eSahulat project, which
allows people to transfer money without involving any bank
transaction for the recipient and sender. It would not be wrong to
mention that in Pakistan NADRA has now assumed the role of a
master agency as it possesses the major citizen database and
collaborates in a number of intergovernmental projects such as the
World Bank supported cash transfer programme called Income
Support Programme and the Watan Card for flood afectees.
NADRA has also collaborated with the PTA by sharing its
database with telecom operators in order for people to verify their
SIM cards against their CNICs. This paper considers NADRA’s
most recent collaboration with another governmental agency- the
Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The next section
describes the role of the ECP and its collaboration with the
NADRA to develop the digitised electoral rolls.
4. ELECTION COMMISSION OF
PAKISTAN
The Election Commission of Pakistan presides over the voting
proceedings of the State and National assemblies and the Senate.
Its Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) is appointed by the
President of Pakistan and with amendments made in the
constitution during 2012; it has been made an autonomous and
independent organisation with separate funds and appointment
powers for interim government, which will be responsible for
organising fresh national elections [32].
The ECP adopted a five-year strategic plan in May 2010, taking
various stakeholders such as political parties, Civil Society
Oraganizations (CSOs), female councillors, minorities, lawyers
and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) on
board. The strategic plan was aimed at overhauling various
technical, organizational and legal functions of the ECP.
Alongside, the ECP also came up with strategic deliverables to
foster digitization of the electoral rolls, building a new website,
translation of content in regional languages, a better Content
Management System (CMS), adoption of Electronic Voting
Machines (EVM), a mobile version of the website and online
availability of all ECP information, results and notifications as
and when announced [11]. The following section details the
collaborative model that the ECP adopted in order to verify and
collate the digitization of electoral rolls with the help of NADRA.
4.1 Multiagency Collaboration at Work:
Preparation of the Computerised
Electoral Rolls System (CERS II)
In June 2011, ECP and NADRA signed a formal contract for the
revision of electoral rolls and the updating of the 2006
Computerised Electoral Rolls System (CERS I). NADRA
extended its support by sharing the citizen database and by
appending and adding supplementary information from their
unique CNIC system against every voter. The CNIC carries
unique identification card with multiple biometric features,
photograph and includes details of residence, contact information
and family status. This inter-sectoral and inter-organisational