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International Journal oflnjormation Management, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 49-60, 1998 © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0268-4012/98 $19.00 ~ 0.00

Pergamon PII: S0268-4012(97)00039-X

Information Systems for Decentralization of Development Planning: Managing the Change Process M Z MOHAMED AND U B APPALANAIDU

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of delegation of authority by the central government to the state and district level government in planning the development projects in Malaysia. Data for this research were obtained from structured questionnaires delivered by mail to a selected sample of respondents as well as fTom secondary sources such as previous studies and relevant government reports. The sample organizations were comprised of government ministries, central agencies, state development offices, and district offices. The results show that the central government has successfully delegated its authority to the state and district levels to the extent of operational and tactical planning as well as decision making. The efforts at decentralization have resulted in greater participation in developmental activities and more effective and efficient administration of development projects. To further enhance the development planning process, the government has introduced computerized information systems known as SETIA and SlAP which have increased the capacity for planning and implementation of the development projects. This demonstrates that the success of the projects depends heavily on careful planning, implementation, and optimal utilization of the resources allocated. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

M. Zain Mohamed and Uthaya Banu Appalanaidu are with the Malaysian Graduate School of Management, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang Selangor. Tel: (03) 948 6101 ext. 1605; Fax: (603) 948 6188 E-mail: [email protected]

Introduction Development planning has been generally accepted by many economists as the most direct way to achieve economic growth of a nation. It has become a n o r m for government ministries of developing countries to produce good development plans every five years or more. This is certainly true for the case of Malaysia where in every fiveyear period the government comes up with a new Malaysian Development plan. Basically, development planning can be said to be influenced, directed, and controlled by the government of a nation. Every nation has a given amount of resources (e.g. h u m a n and capital) which are usually limited in nature. The question then is how best to utilize the limited resources to achieve the objectives of a development planning. Thus, there is a need to have an overall comprehensive development planning process whereby the scarce resources could be optimally used to achieve development objectives. Some of the national goals most often mentioned include a rapid increase in per capita income, a reduction of poverty and income inequalities, and a relatively high stability of price of primary

49

Managing the change process." M Z Mohamed and U B Appalanaidu

commodities. The development planning process (as illustrated in Figure 1) in Malaysia started way back during the colonial era and has been carried on up to the present time. However, the strategy of planning and the emphasis given to it have changed over time in keeping with the changes that have occurred in the social, political and economic environment, not only within the country, but also globally. The concept of developing and implementing a five-year development plan started in Malaysia in 1956 and since then the country has implemented six development plans. From the 2 development goals of the 1950s, which emphasized provision of infrastructure and rural development to the economic growth goal of the 1990s, these plans collectively provide an explicit sense of direction for the development of the nation. Within these national plans, major development initiatives have been

PARLIAMENT

]

t

CABINET/NATIONALECONOMICCOUNCIL (NEC)

T

i

I

I |

NATIONALDEVELOPMENTPLANNING COMMITTEE(NDPC) (Secterariat: Economic Planning Unit or EPU)

I

I

ESTIMAT OMM,TTEE INTER AGENCYPLANNINGGROUP(IAPG) Resource forecast, policy targets, macro targets, sectoral targets, regional targets (Secretariat: EPU)

CENTRALAGENCIES Project evaluation and selection Fitting programmes into policies (Secretariat: EPU)

I FEDERAL MINISTRIES/DEPARTMENTS

STATE ECONOMIC ] PLANNINGUNIT

Project identification and analysis according to set criteria and policy guidelines

FEDERAL DEPARTMENTSAT STATE LEVEL Project identification at state level and preliminary project analysis (Federal subjects)

I

State

Dev.

determine state priorities and state plans

Office

(SDO)

STATE DEPARTMENTS

l StateDev. I Corporation I

T

t

I DISTRICTOFFICES Determine district priorities and plans

Figure 1 Stages in the process of national development planning

50

Managing the change process: M Z Mohamed and U B Appalanaidu

1Rondinelli, D. A., Nellis, J. R. and Cheema, G. S. (1983) Decentralization in Developing Countries: A Review of Recent Experience. World Bank Staff Working Paper no. 581, Washington DC, USA.

recognized by the central, state, and district governments. The need to coordinate these initiatives and to ensure that the implementation of the projects which conformed to planning schedules drawn up at the central level, meant that inevitably some forms of information systems were required through which the central government would be kept updated on the development progress. Very large information systems were initially centralized, but gradually they were decentralized. In Malaysia, the main responsibility for preparing the five year development plan falls on the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) of the Prime Minister's Department. To aid in the process of coming up with a development plan, a large-scale system called SETIA (an acronym for System for Economic Planning Unit, Treasury. Implementation and Coordination Unit, and Accountant General's Department) which requires close consultation with the relevant agencies in the preparation of the plan, was developed and implemented in early 1984. The system provides an opportunity for the state and district level governments to monitor their various development projects. The system coordinates the activities of the central government and facilitates the use of information technology for project management at the local levels. A large number of governments in developing countries attempted to decentralize development planning and management responsibilities during the 1970s and early 1980s. The goal of development policies in most countries is to distribute the benefits of economic growth more equitably in order to increase the productivity and income of all segments of society, and to raise the living standard of the poor. Decentralization is often seen as a way of increasing the ability of central government officials to obtain better and more reliable information about local or regional conditions, to plan local programmes more responsively, and to react more quickly to unanticipated problems that inevitably arise during implementation. The efforts at decentralizing development planning have already been undertaken by many developing countries. For example, lndonesia's Provincial Development Programme, Morocco's local government reform, efforts to decentralize in Thailand, Pakistan, and Tunisia have produced improvements in resource distribution, local participation, extension of public services to rural areas, and project identification and implementation. In theory, decentralization of the development process would allow projects to be completed sooner by giving local managers greater discretion in decision making so as to enable them to cut through the "red tape" and procedures often associated with over centralized administrations. Decentralization can also be seen as a way of mobilizing support for national development policies by making them better known to the people at the local level. Also, local government or administrative units can be effective channels of communication between the national government and the local communities. Furthermore, greater participation in development planning promotes national unity and political stability. Moreover, it has become clear that many functions that are currently the responsibility of central government are performed poorly because of the difficulty of extending central services to local communities. For example, maintenance of roads and basic physical infrastructure are sometimes done better by local government compared to the central government which cannot easily monitor their deterioration or breakdowns. In Malaysia there is a need for the government to improve the perfor-

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mance of the planning and implementation of development projects as its delay will affect the objectives of economic and national development. Towards this end, a decentralized system for development planning has been introduced in order to meet the national objectives. Thus, a study needs to be carried out not only to review the decentralization efforts that have already been carried out, but also to assess their results. Therefore, the general objective of this study is to investigate to what extent the central government has been successful at delegating its authority to the state and the district level governments in planning their development projects. This general objective can be broken down into two specific objectives: (a) to study the purposes of decentralized information system for development planning and to evaluate its performance; and (b) to examine the impacts of the use of information technology (IT) in decentralized development planning.

Previous studies

2Shams, K., Organizing local level initiatives for decentralized development experiences from Asia and The Pacific. The Nepalese Journal of Public Administration, 1991, 2(60), 19-34. 3Shrestha, T. N., The implementation of new decentralization plan in Nepal an assessment. The Nepalese Journal of Public Administration, 1989, 3(55), 11-30. 4APDC, Searching for A Paddle-- Trends in IT Applications in Asian Government Systems, Kuala Lumpur, 1987.

52

A case study undertaken by Asia And Pacific Development Centre (APDC) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation of Germany has produced substantial evidence on how to institutionalize participation of people at local levels, and on how they manage their own development projects through decentralized structures. 2 The two organizations have indicated that in many regional countries: (a) there are locally initiated and self-managed organizations to begin a process of rural development; (b) political power is needed at local levels in order for the people to organize themselves and gain access to productive resources; (c) the people at local levels need a viable organization of their own if they are to manage their development; (d) the people at local levels need the support from government and other external sources to enhance their bargaining power and improve their political position; (e) there has to be a commitment and continuity of efforts when it comes to decentralization of development programmes, such as human resource development, technical assistance and regular funding; and (f) development programmes which emphasize introduction of new technologies have to rely heavily on government's delivery systems for research, extension, credit, input supplies and marketing services. In 1991, Shrestha 3 carried out a study on the New Decentralization Plan (NDP) which was aimed at assessing the implementation of the country's plan. Based on observations made during his field visits to the districts of Kaski and Tanahu in Nepal, he discovered that the implementation and evaluation of Nepal's plan were not fully successful due to two inter-related obstacles: (a) non-realization of the importance of the spirit of decentralization by the central government; and (b) inadequate institutional development occurring at the local government. According to a study on the use of IT for decentralized development sponsored by APDC, 4 very large nationwide information systems (IS) have been gradually decentralized for the end users at local levels, such as by giving a district a greater role in gathering and processing of data for project monitoring and evaluation purposes. This is best exemplified by the SETIA of Malaysia where the state and district level officials have been involved in project monitoring activities since 1984. The tangible benefits of decentralization have been reported in terms of reduction in operational expenses, increase in productivity, improved


quality of project implementation, better quality of reporting, reduced workload, greater management awareness, and giving a better sense of control over the implementation process. For instance, in 1985, Taylor 5 highlighted a number of control problems that can arise when adopting small on-line mini/micro based business systems as compared to a centralized mainframe operation. Although generally the same control principles apply to mainframe applications, the distributed or small micro system demands a more positive user attitude towards control. The potential control problems with distributed system concern with its installation and applications. Favourable conditions for distributed processing which involve widely scattered operations, autonomous offices, and the need for continuous operation throughout the network are also the conditions that make distributed processing most difficult to accomplish. 6 Even in the most advanced network, the presence of risks at the remote nodes is higher than if processing is done at a central location. As more regional users become familiar with distributed facilities, they are also finding more ways of using the accessed data. The key to successful use of distributed system rests on selection of a model that can preserve the integrity of data when they are processed at any of the distributed nodes. Properly implemented, an interactive databasesearching can provide decision makers with instant access to high value information for use in time consuming, costly and complex planning and implementation activities. Vieira 7 indicated that the degree of decentralization is significantly correlated with five factors: (a) the age of nation, i.e. older, well established national governments have a higher degree of decentralization than newer ones; (b) the size of gross national products (GNP), i.e. countries with high level of G N P tended to have a higher degree of decentralization than poorer countries; (c) the level of development of mass media, i.e. countries with more sophisticated and widespread mass communications system tended to be more decentralized than those with weak systems; (d) the level of industrialization, i.e. industrialized countries tended to be more decentralized than those with agricultural economies; and (e) the number of local government, i.e. countries with more units of local governments tended to be more decentralized.

Research and data collection methods

STaylor, C., Audit objectives in the review of computer-based systems. Journal of Management Accounting, 1985, 63(9), 48-50. 6Disiding, D., The case of decentralized control of data processing. The Office: Magazine of IS and Management, 1978, 100(3), 50-54. 7Vieira, P., Toward a Theory of Decentralisation: A Comparative View of Forty-Five Countries. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1967.

This study provides an insight into information technology within the public sector of Malaysia. The term public sector refers to central government, state government, local authority and statutory bodies whose activities mainly involve effective planning and implementation for development projects. Due to a large number of government agencies/departments in Malaysia, this study is confined to the ministries and central agencies (Economic Planing Unit or EPU, Implementation and Coordination Unit or ICU, etc.) which are located in Kuala Lumpur and 13 state capitals and their respective districts located across the country. The sample was drawn up from a number of sources, including a list of ministries, central agencies, state departments and their respective districts located in every state in Malaysia which was obtained from the ICU. Only 50 organizations were finally selected at random to be the sample for this study. The organizations within the sample were stratified

53

Managing the change process." M Z Mohamed and U B Appalanaidu

into the three categories: (a) type A-central government; (b) type B-state government; and (c) type C-district level government. Basically, the purpose of this categorization was to show in greater depth the level of planning and decision of the various level of government agencies. The structured questionnaires were sent to the organizations via mail. Out of the 50 organizations, only 13 organizations (or 26%) returned the completed questionnaires. Secondary data from previous research were also referred to wherever appropriate. Since the structures and procedures of the various organizations at each level are basically the same, the 13 completed questionnaires are deemed sufficient for us to carry out the analysis. For the purpose of this study, the information system model developed by Davis and Olson 8 was used as a framework to analyze the various levels of planning and decision making activities. The model is broken down into four levels: (1) strategic planning and decision making; (2) tactical planning and decision making for management control; (3) operational planning and decision making; and (4) transaction processing.

Results and discussion Decentralization of development planning

The purpose of decentralization was revealed by many objectives stated by the respondent organizations. Based on the survey, the most common objective was that decentralization would reduce workload and congestion in the channels of administration and communication. Decentralization would also promote economic and managerial efficiency by allowing government at both local and central levels to achieve development goals in a more cost effective manner. Secondly, decentralization would increase administrative effectiveness by promoting greater coordination among units of central and local governments by encouraging closer cooperation among organizations in order to attain mutually acceptable development goals. Programmes were decentralized with the expectation that delays would be reduced and that central level authorities' indifference towards the efforts to satisfy the needs of the local level authorities would be overcome. It was also thought that decentralization would improve government's responsiveness to the public and that it would increase the quantity and quality of the services it provides. The government constantly emphasized the importance of quality and productivity. Efforts in this direction would bring benefits to all the workers, organizations and the nation as a whole. The launching of the "Excellent Work Culture Movement" clearly shows the government's commitment towards quality and productivity improvement in the public service. In mobilizing their efforts, emphasis has been placed on the Total Quality Management (TQM) concept whereby quality management requires participation from all members of the organization in the process of creating quality organization and this could be achieved by decentralizing the management functions. Decentralization would also contribute to achieving 8Davis, G. B. and Olson, M. H., broad political objectives. Furthermore, it would promote political stabiManagement Information System: lity, mobilize support and cooperation for national development policies Conceptual Foundations, Structure and Development. McGraw Hill, New and provide for the heterogeneous interests of the communities which York, 1985. have a stake in the survival of the political system.

54


This study also examined the effectiveness of the governmental units in achieving their goals as mentioned above. All the respondents agreed that they have obtained the rate of 50%-75% effectiveness as the results of the decentralization exercise. The less than 100% effectiveness achievement was mainly due to several factors including limited capability in the planning and managing of development projects, lack of flexibility in the financial management, problems in land acquisition, and in the inability of the contractors to implement development projects according to schedule. These factors have also contributed to the shortfall in development expenditures. As an illustration, as shown in Table 1, for the first four years of the Fifth Malaysia Plan 1986~1989, the rate of implementation of development projects, viewed from the perspective of financial disbursements ranged from 68% to 83%. 9 This is crucial for the government as a shortfall in its development expenditures represents an opportunity cost in terms of reduced allocations for other projects and a direct cost to the government when it involves borrowings. Project planning and decision mak&g

Malaysia, like most industrializing countries falls into the category of mixed developing economies where a certain portion of the productive resources are under the control of the public sector while the remainder is privately controlled. Even for the organizations that have been privatized, the government still holds a substantial share of the ownership. Thus, there is a certain degree of direct involvement in the actual development process by the government and planning is one of lhe prerequisites for the success of any development plan. Even though the EPU is responsible for preparing the five-year development plan, it does not mean that the country practices centralization in terms of management functions. In fact, a system has been developed whereby close consultation with other government units is carried out when preparing the plans. In other words, the central government has delegated its authority to the state and district level units in planning the development projects. However, the question now is to what extent has the authority been delegated? Based on the results of this study the central government is involved in the macro level planning and in the formulation of macro policies, strategies, and programmes. As for the state government, they are more involved in the state level formulation of policies, strategies and programmes within the context of the central 9Implementation and Coordination government. The district government is responsible for micro level planUnit, Prime Minister's Department, ning and implementation within the context of the central and state Report on National Development Project Monitoring System. Kuala governments. Lumpur. In order to facilitate the determination of the various levels of plan-

Table 1

Fifth Malaysia plan shortfall in development expenditure

Year

Allocation (RM* million)

Expenditure (RM million)

Percentage spent

Percentage shortfall

1986 1987 1988 1989

9 946 6817 7 294 8 619

7 559 4 635 5 231 6199

76.0 68.0 71.7 83.0

24.0 32.0 28.3 17.0

* Ringgit Malaysia (US$1.00=RM2.50)

55


ning and decision making practiced by the government, a more detailed approach to information characteristics of management planning and control and job content of management levels has been adopted in this study. The results have been summarized in Table 2 and Table 3, respectively. Based on the information system model developed by Davis and Olson, 1° the information characteristics as given in Table 2, and the job content as given in Table 3, it could be concluded that:

~°Davis, G. B. and Olson, M. H., Management Information System: Conceptual Foundations, Structure and Development. McGraw Hill, New York, 1985.

• The central government was involved in strategic planning and decision making whereby they deal with problems at macro level and with a long term planning horizon. • The state government was involved in tactical planning and decision making for management control. They assured that resources were obtained and used effectively and efficiently within the macro targets and policies set by the central government.

Table 2 Information characteristics of management planning and control Information characteristics

Central government

State government

District government

Volume Level of aggregation Frequency of use of a particular type of data Accuracy Scope Source

Low High Low

Intermediate Intermediate Intermediate

High Low High

Low

Intermediate Intermediate Mostly internal

High High Entirely internal

High Intermediate Fairly close

Very high Low Close

Intermediate

High

Predictability of use Variability with user Distance of user from sources within organization Currency requirement

Wide Significant amount from external sources Low High Far Low

Table 3 Job content of management levels Character

Central government

State government

District government

Focus on planning Focus on control Time frame Scope of activity Nature of activity Level of complexity

Heavy Moderate One to five years Broad Relatively unstructured Very complex, many variables Plans, policies and strategies

Minimum Heavy Day to day Single sub-function Highly structured Straight-forward

Relatively easy

Mental attributes

Creative, innovative

Number of people involved Job measurement

Few

Moderate Heavy Up to a year Entirely functional Moderately structured Less complex, better defined variables Implementation schedules, performance yardstick Responsible, persuasive, administrative Moderate number

Difficult

Less difficult

Result of activity

56

End product

Efficient and effective Many

Managing the change process: M Z Mohamed and U B Appalanaidu • The district government was involved in the operational planning, decision making and controlling to support the implementation and the day-to-day activities of the development projects. They ensured that the day-to-day activities of the development projects were processed, recorded and acted upon. In other words, they were also involved in transaction processing. Although the delegation of authority in planning the development projects has contributed to a number of benefits, namely, the promotion of economic and managerial efficiency and the greater coordination among the units of the central and local governments, the planning process ought to be improved mainly due to the inability of the government to fully utilize its development budgets. Some of the steps that have been taken to improve the planning of development projects include: 11 • The setting up of planning units at various ministries and staffing them with skilled and experienced officers where project management is concern. This is mainly to reduce the problems of limited capability in the planning and managing of development projects. • Designing of a manual on the preparation of project to assist implementors to perform their jobs effectively. • Conduct comparative studies between a high performing ministry against a low performing one in terms of performance in the implementation of development projects. By doing this, better strategies or remedies could be generated by evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the implementing units. Project implementation and monitoring

~Government of Malaysia, Improvements and Development in the Public Service. Government of Malaysia Printer, Kuala Lumpur, 1990.

Information system development and implementation. The Government is aware of the significance of effective implementation of development projects, since delays in implementation would affect the objectives of national development and would result in a shortfall of development expenditures. In order to ensure that the development projects are implemented efficiently and according to schedule, the Government has introduced Instruction Number 1 of the National Action Council (NAC), 1971 (Amendment 1973). The instruction provides guidelines for various decision making mechanisms and coordination of the development projects. Thus, the machinery responsible for supervising and coordinating the implementation of development plans at the federal level is the NAC, with the ICU providing the secretariat. At the state level, State Action Committees (SAC) supervise and coordinate the implementation of the projects in the states while at the district level, the responsibility lies with the District Action Committees (DAC). The importance of proper coordination of activities and effective project implementation has inevitably resulted in the need for an information system. This has resulted in the development of the Rural Economic Development (RED) Book system, a manual information system developed in the early 1960s. Under this system, which was based on the military style of security operations, planned projects in each of the district were documented and updated from time to time on maps and charts using the operations room in order to show the progress on the implementation.

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However, the rapid expansion of development activities has resulted in the dropping of RED Book plans and its subsequent conversion to the computerized Project Monitoring System (PMS) in 1978. The PMS was a centralized reporting system whereby all forms were sent by the implementing agencies to the ICU for processing. The system had its weaknesses including: (a) too many forms needed to be processed centrally; (b) some projects were not reported by the implementing strategies; (c) incomplete, inaccurate and late reporting; and (d) since it was run by the central agencies it was not being properly coordinated. 12 As a result, the SETIA was set up in March 1984 with an objective of providing a common database with common data source and end-user facilities to the government agencies for the purpose of planning and controlling of development projects. 13

~2Prime Minister's Department, Report of the Cabinet Committee on Steps to Speed Up the Implementation of DevelOgmmentProjects. Kuala Lumpur, 1981. plementation and Coordination Unit, Prime Minister's Department, Report on National Development Project Monitoring System, Kuala Lumpur, 1990. 14Render, B. and Han, C. K., Information systems for development management in developing countries. Information Management, 1989, 95103. 15Implementation and Coordination Unit, Prime Minister's Department, Report on National Development Project Monitoring System. Kuala Lumpur, 1990. 16Render, B. and Han, C. K., Information systems for development management in developing Countries. Information and Management, 1989, 95-103.

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The S E T I A distributed processing system. The SETIA was designed as an automated monitoring system built into the machinery of the management of development projects. The conceptual structure of this system can be seen in Render and HanJ 4 Information on project approval, yearly budget allocation, project implementation and disbursement of funds was subsequently transmitted to the ICU through data lines kept in the SETIA database. The SETIA provided computers to the ministries and central agencies and these computers were linked to the ICU by a network called SETIANET. The network has also been extended to the state development offices. Three types of forms (called S1, $2 and $3 are used to record input data. Form S1 is used to register development projects that have been approved by EPU for implementation. Form $2 is used for yearly budget allocations which are submitted by the ministries to the Treasury. Finally, Form $3 contains data on the progress of the implementation of projects given to the ministries by the implementing agencies. It also contains vouchers for payments submitted by the ministries to the Accountant General Department.~5 The outputs of the SETIA system include general and primary listings from the S1, $2 and $3 forms, on-line queries, and analysis and reports. The general listing of items in the S1, $2 and $3 forms is based on user requirements while the primary listing is a regular report for the purposes of verification, queries, etc. Three types of reports are prepared which are executive summary report for the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers, management reports for the Chief Secretary and the various Director Generals, and detailed reports for Project Managers. 16 The executive summary and management reports are aimed at providing macro-level analysis, whereas the detailed reports are aimed at highlighting project problem areas where currency of information is of vital importance. The detailed reports are mainly used by the state departments and district offices for the purpose of project implementation and evaluation. An assessment o f the S E T I A system. One of the ways to evaluate the

system is by looking at the value of information generated. Based on the study results, all the respondents were satisfied with the information generated by the SETIA system whereby the frequency of errors occuring in the reports generated was less than 25%. In terms of the potential use or utility of information produced by the system, the respondents agreed that:

Managing the change process: M Z Mohamed and U B Appalanaidu • • • •

The information supplied matches well with the requirements. Information is available when needed. Information is available or could be made available where it is needed. Information flow is controlled by the owner or possessor of information such that it is available in required form, time and place of potential use.

The capability of the SETIA system used to monitor development projects was later found to be limited since it only monitored financial performance. Therefore, a new system called the Integrated Application Scheduling System (SIAP) which monitors the physical performance of development projects was introduced in 1991 as an additional feature of the SETIA system. With the use of both systems, proper monitoring and measuring the performance of project implementations could be carried out. 17 Impact of inJormation technology

17Government of Malaysia, Improvements and Development in the Public Service. Government of Malaysia Printer, Kuala Lumpur, 1990. ~SNew Straits Times, IT in Government, Computimes October 27, 1994.

IT has been identified as one of the key tools that the Government must have in order to be effective in its operations. It is also the means for the nation to become an information rich society. Arising from this, and since there are strong linkages between information technology usage and improvement in productivity and quality, the government has embarked on several major computerization programmes. In the 1990s, it was anticipated that computerization would be more pervasive. Computers would not only be used for data processing but also for helping the management in decision making.18 Thus, the quality and productivity of the government in developing our nation can be assessed based on the effectiveness of information systems employed. To assess the effectiveness of the current information systems employed, this study examined the IT's capability in information management and data processing capabilities of the government. The results indicated that the current information systems employed were capable of managing information effectively, where compilation, storage, analysis, manipulation and presentation of information might be a concern. Apart from that, the systems were also capable of processing and computing large volumes of data with great accuracy and speed. One of the most significant impacts of computerization was the delegation of authority to the state and district levels in planning the development projects. This could be seen in the efforts of the central government to modernize the state and district administration and in the management of the various types of information such as development, planning, socioeconomic and other related information. Computer usage has facilitated the top management to get easy access to information related to development planning and implementation of development projects. Therefore, the information systems, i.e., SETIA and SIAP which were developed and implemented by the government were found to be successful in improving its decision making process. In an effort to promote the development of IT, the government has emphasized the improvement of training and development of its human resources in the field of IT since it believes that human resources are one of the critical components for the success of IT programmes in the nation. The objectives of the training and development programmes were mainly to provide exposure to microcomputers and to equip the staff with the computer skills necessary for carrying their work.

59


Conclusion Malaysia is evolving towards the creation of an information society. This is inevitable considering the rates of growth experienced by the country within the last decade. One of the factors contributing to the success of a nation is the ability to manage and control internal and external information. Therefore, the ability to process, manage and disseminate information efficiently and effectively is critical to the success of national development and the nation's competitiveness at the international level. Recognizing this, the government has given serious attention to the field of IT. The government's efforts thus far in computerization of the national development process has enhanced the capacity for planning and implementation of development projects. This has been clearly reflected by the introduction of the SETIA distributed processing system which is used as a vehicle for decentralized development. The results of this study have indicated that the central government has delegated its authority to the state and district levels governments to the extent of tactical and operational planning and decision making, respectively. As a result, increased user participation in the various phases of development planning from strategic design to testing and implementation and coordination of the various activities in the development process has been achieved. Certain levels of satisfaction from the use of the system were reported by the users from the various levels of government and this in the long term would benefits the nation as a whole.

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