Public Administration and Security Vice Minister of the Republic of Korea asserted that Sri Lanka had the personnel to lead the country in ICT. That was when he visited ICTA prior to the inauguration of the Information Access Centre at the National Institute of Business Management (NIBM) recently.

Vice Minister of Administration and Security of the Republic of Korea Kim Youngho and Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Sri Lanka Choi Ki Chul paid a courtesy call on the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) Chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe, at ICTA .

Speaking on the occasion Minister Youngho said that appropriate policies must be followed in making the benefits of modern development accrue to the people. The minister also emphasised the need of proper personnel to take the lead in carrying out this task. Kim went on to say that after visiting ICTA he was convinced that Government officials in Sri Lanka were more than ready to take on the task of providing the lead in bringing about the benefits of developments, in Information and Communication Technology to the rural people of Sri Lanka.

Joining the discussion Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Sri Lanka Choi Ki Chul said that Sri Lanka and the Republic of Korea have always had warm relationship, and the projects that the Republic of Korea was involved in with Sri Lanka, strengthened that relationship. Presenting to ICTA Chairman a publication dealing with Korea’s contribution to world development in ICT, the ambassador said that there were many areas in which the Republic of Korea could help towards further development in the sphere of eGovernment and that his Government would be only too pleased to share with Sri Lanka the know-how in the field.

ICTA Chairman Prof. P. W. Epasinghe paying a glowing tribute to the Republic of Korea said that a mere glance at the publication for a couple of minutes, showed that there were a large number of areas in the e-re-engineering Government sphere in which Sri Lanka could learn, like the home tax system which would relieve the tax-payer of the embarrassment of meeting the tax collector and still urge him / her to pay the tax.

Urged by the Korean Minister for an explanation on the legal background to ICTA, ICTA Programme Director and Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando gave an overview of the legal background of ICTA. Based on the provisions of the ICT Act No. 27 of 2003 the amending Act no 33 of 2008 had made the work of ICTA more implementation-friendly. This Act was unanimously passed by Parliament.

 Programme Head, Information Infrastructure, ICTA, Dil Piyaratna gave a presentation on the Korean funded Lanka Government Network which has connected 325 (Government of Sri Lanka) GoSL organisations including the Presidential Secretariat, Prime Minister’s Office besides 48 Ministries, 80 Departments and 190 District and Divisional Secretariats as well as five Provincial Councils to a single network with high speed internet, e-mail, Virtual Private Network (VPN), and communication Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) enabled communication. The implementation of the Lanka Government Network (LGN) stage II, will commence in the first quarter of 2009, linking a further 150 GoSL organisations in the Ampara, Anuradhapura, Pollonnaurwa, Kurunegala and Puttalam districts.