[Reporter`s View]Overlapped IT Investment

The vice-ministers of Ministry of Finance and Economy, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, Ministry of Information and Communication, and Ministry of Culture and Tourism met last Saturday to find a solution for ‘overlapped IT investment’ within the government organizations, after Donga Ilbo reported that there was an overlap in government’s IT policy and budget. Although the participants expected to come up with a feasible solution for the problem, they left the meeting without reaching an agreement. The participants said what they confirmed in the meeting was their different approaches to the problem.

Right after the news on ‘overlapped IT investment’ broke out last Saturday, a government official from Cheong Wa Dae said to the reporters, ‘Creating various ideas in the earlier stage cannot be viewed as confusion’. The official added that ‘IT industry has been expanding since three years ago and is still in the process of growing’.

As a Cheong Wa Dae official said, it is not a bad thing for each ministry to propose a good idea. However, it is not an accurate judgment to view the overlapped IT investment, which only reflects each ministry’s self-interest, as ‘well-intentioned idea’.

The remark that ‘IT industry has been expanding since three years ago’ is also a subjective expression. The seeds of semiconductor, PC, and the main IT industry, such as mobile telecommunication, have already been planted in the 1980s and have begun to bear fruits in 1990s regardless of government.

Many people highly evaluate the government’s goal of informationalization of the nation. However, if the purpose of informationalization is not for the people’s convenience but for the administrative achievement, it is unlikely to expect a real industrial development If the informationalization is aimed at its appearance without substance, it is unlikely to expect the industrial development.

The bigger problem is that government cannot ‘rehearse’ for informationalization of the nation. One mistake of policy can be a fatal blow to the nation’s competitiveness. Informationalization should be a stepping-stone for Korea to become a powerful nation. One scholar pointed out that ‘IT policy should be carried forward systemically under the macroscopic strategy. It is suspicious whether each government organization has this kind of concept’. The government should meticulously examine whether there is any wasting element in overlapped IT investment.

freewill@donga.com