Analyzing the impact of ethical issues in e-government implementation: a case of Zambia

E-government is intended to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to
benefit citizens, business partners and employees while reducing corruption and costs but
increasing transparency and revenue growth on the other hand.
Despite the foregoing, the use of ICTs in both public and private sector, at individual and
institutional levels, has brought about a spectrum of ethical challenges in our societies thereby
undermining efforts made to encourage citizens adopt the use of electronic services deployed for
public service. The objectives of this research were to establish what ethical issues arise in egovernment
implementation especially in developing countries, in this case Zambia and the
impact these ethical issues have on e-government implementation. In addition, to understand
how IT systems can be designed to address the identified ethical issues that arise in egovernment.
From the research, it was established that the prominent ethical issues that arise in e-government
implementation are security and privacy. 44% of the respondents agree, in addition to 28% who
strongly agree, that the inclusion of ethical issues in planning of e-government will contribute to
the successful implementation of e-government. Only 38.5% of the respondents affirm that the
current e-government policy addresses these ethical issues in e-government implementation
while 30.8% disagree and another 30.8% are not sure.
This study recommends that a holistic approach to the addressing of these ethical issues should
be adopted by governments to avoid formulation of policies in silos. The design of such policies
must precede any systems design as systems design must manifest efforts to address the ethical
issues that arise in the use of the particular systems concerned using Value Sensitive Design.