(* the title is in Slovene and it means “Dumbass!” I chose the slovene title because this word is not used frequently enough and it carries a far greater potential than an ordinary dumbass.)

I went to a lecture held by the minister of Public administration about e-government and e-democracy. I fear now more than ever about my country and the people who run it, because this guy was a cepec! A complete and total cepec!

Let just examine some of his answers to our questions:

Q: This e-administration sounds lovely and all, but how are you going to bring this to the people? How are you going to close the digital divide?

A: Oh, I think that won`t be a problem. The future generations are using the computers more and more (what about us?) and the divide will close itself up all by itself. And where computers will not be present, we`ll still have clerks and administrators (some e-government. That does not solve the problem).
*
Q: You talk about solving everything through the web, but I still had to print the form and sent it via snail mail.
A: Ah, we solved that exactly three weeks ago. When did you send it?
Q: Two weeks ago.
*
Q: Are you going to implement this e-voting on the next local elections?
A: No.
*

His statements were not far from the answers:

Statement: I set a personal goal to save 5 million tollars within the ministry of Public administration (Boo-hoo. 5 miliion? What are you going to do? Quit drinking coffee?)
*
Statement: We are going to fire a hundred people without causing any damage to the flow of the work or the payment balance (So they did NOTHING and they did it FOR FREE?) .
*
Statement: And this is where you authendic…audenti…authenticate your identity.
*

All in all, a very very poor exhibit by the man in charge of this area. E-government in Slovenia, beware!