SKALI CONTRIBUTES TO THE MAJORITY OF GOVERNMENT’S TOP 3 PORTALS AND WEBSITES

KUALA LUMPUR (January 8, 2014): SKALI, a Web Enterprise and the largest open source company in South East Asia, has recorded excellent results in the recently-concluded Managed Portal Services (MPS) project with 94 per cent of the government websites and portals it developed achieved the highest five-star status, with the remaining six per cent achieving the four-star status.

The results were part of the highlights of the Malaysia Government Portals and Websites Assessment (MGPWA) 2013 released by the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) recently, aimed at providing a check-and-balance assessment that not only offers the agencies a score-card of their online presence but also as a guidance to improve their services to serve the public effectively.

SKALI implemented the MPS project for the Malaysian Government from 2008 to 2013, covering 152 government portals and websites. MPS involved the upgrading and continuous maintenance of these websites and portals including content updating and translation work.

Tengku Farith Rithauddeen, Group CEO of SKALI, said, “Before the implementation of the MPS project, most of the websites and portals that we were implementing were only three Stars and below.”

“Via MPS, we had transformed the websites and portals from zero to 94 per cent five-star achievers.  This represents 139 websites and portals of the 148 MPS sites assessed during the assessment.

“This is a great improvement compared to the last assessment done in 2012, with most of the same websites and portals moving up from the two and three-star rankings to the four-star and five-star rankings.”

The Department of Agriculture Malaysia and myGovernment, both implemented by SKALI, were the highest ranking portals scoring 92 per cent each.

As for websites, seven of the eight top sites were implemented by SKALI -- with the Tapah District Council’s website was ranked first scoring 96 percent, followed by the Tangkak District Council with 95 per cent and the Farmers’ Organisation Authority Malaysia, Kemubu Agriculture Development Authority, the Klang Municipal Council, the National Craft Institute and the Teluk Intan Municipal Council sharing the third ranking scoring 94 per cent each.

The websites and portals were assessed based on three criteria - the main assessment (MA), online services assessment (OSA) and benchmarking.

“On the whole, 360 websites and portals had achieved the five-star status. Of the Top Three websites and portals, 87 per cent of the websites and 40 per cent of the portals were implemented by SKALI via the MPS project.

“Malaysia is currently at number eight amongst the Asian nations and regarded as one of the world’s emerging leaders with regards to e-government readiness as issued by the United Nation in 2012.

“I am sure the improved MPS websites and portals would help the country move up the rank further as they make it easier for both Malaysians and foreigners to navigate information and make use of electronic services,” he said.

Tengku Farith also revealed that SKALI had employed more than 800 graduates from local universities to work on the MPS websites and portals during the five-year period of the project, as part of its graduate training programme.

“MPS has been successful in reducing unemployment rates, requiring the hiring of unemployed graduates and providing them with training to gain ICT skills.  

“We now look forward to be given the opportunity to continue our efforts in upgrading government websites and portals especially after the favourable report by MGPWA 2013,” said Tengku Farith.

Details of the MGPWA 2013 results were shared at a dinner recently which was also held to recognise the high achievers and signify the closure of the MPS project.  Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was the guest of honour and presented awards to the five-star websites and portals.