The Effectiveness of Electronic Office System for Service Delivery at the Ministry of Finance, Tanzania

Abstract

This study assessed the effectiveness of e-office system for service delivery. Specifically, it set out to examine the role of e-office in supporting e-records management for service delivery, determine organisational capacity to enhance e-office for service delivery, evaluate the challenges users of the e-office for service delivery at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) face, and suggest strategies for a more effective e-office system in public offices. The study employed a descriptive research design with both quantitative and qualitative approaches albeit with the quantitative dominating the study. Moreover, the study used interview and questionnaires from a sample of 53 staff purposively and conveniently collected. The findings indicated that the e-office has managed to enhance retrieval and use of records, movement of files from one officer to another for timely decision making and attending to organisational tasks. Regardless of such benefits, e-office factors pertaining to organisational capacity, internal and external factors associated with the system limited the effectiveness of its operations. The study found that e-office system depends on technology, ICT legal tools, digital technologies, personnel, e-records management system characteristics, and organizational capacity all of which need to be improved. As such, e-office remains a challenging technology, which requires the availability of traditional paper-based systems to backup records management practices. Implicitly, the adoption and use of e-office should not be an individual organisational strategy but as mandatory government-supported requirement for any institution seeking to improve service delivery through e-records management in Tanzania.