Some 31 of the 48 departments of the Shijiazhuang municipal
government have their own websites, but an investigation found 24
of them to be inactive. What's more, in this capital of north
China's Hebei
Province, the same applied to 12 of the 20 county-level
government websites.
It was Fan Xianlin, deputy secretary-general of the Shijiazhuang
municipal government and director of the Shijiazhuang Municipal
Information Center, who drew attention to this in early August. Not
only did the media carry the story but also mentioned the
departments involved by name.
The Yanzhao Evening News reported that some of the
information on the website run by the provincial capital's Civil
Affairs Bureau was inaccurate. For example, its homepage had a
column headed "Shijiazhuang Holding Center" but the name had been
changed to the "Shijiazhuang Relief Center" a long time previously.
"I'm not quite clear about that information," said an official from
the bureau.
The newspaper also revealed that no one could access the website
run by the Municipal Water Conservancy Bureau. An employee there
admitted that the bureau had not updated the site since it had been
set up in 2001. He cited lack of funds and technical personnel as
the reason for this, saying with concern, "Government websites are
really just an empty 'shell.' Little attention is paid to them by
the higher authorities so they are given a low priority by those
responsible for looking after them."
The various websites that found themselves named in the media
have given a number of reasons for their inactivity. These included
alterations to the sites or inability to disclose information,
which was classed as "state secrets" and so couldn't be made
public.
Director Fan Xianlin identified three ways in which the
government websites were failing to deliver. Some had been set up
too quickly with insufficient operating support and so were being
flooded with junk mail leading to slow response times. Some existed
in name only. Others had software problems preventing effective
interaction with the public.
Fan said, "Inactive government websites are common across the
country as a whole. The low uptake of e-government springs from old
habits rather than from gaps in technology. Some leaders know
little about the rapid development of the Internet."
Senior officials involved with the Shijiazhuang municipal
government website have not sought to evade the problem. On the
contrary, they have posted reports addressing the issues on their
homepage.
(China Youth Daily, translated by Li Jingrong for
China.org.cn, August 19, 2004)