Abstract:
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been recognized by
developing countries as one of the tools needed to tackle many bottlenecks
affecting the public sector of various governments today. The rationale of this
study was to analyse the extent of ICT application in the public sector and its
relationship with good governance in Morogoro Municipal Council, Tanzania.
On one hand, good governance was measured in terms of accountability,
openness, and citizen participation as well as corruption control while on the
other hand, ICT application was limited to the use of social media, e-government,
SMS, toll free call numbers, e-mailing, and video conferencing. The descriptive
cross-sectional design was used to collect quantitative data from 31 civil servants
in Morogoro Municipal Council using a structured questionnaire. A census
sampling technique was used to select all civil servants as respondents. The
overall findings of the study based on descriptive statistics show that civil
servants agreed to a great extent that ICT application is implemented in
government functions to enable good governance. Moreover, inferential results
show that all ICT applications have a positive and significant relationship with
good governance in terms of transparency, accountability, and community
participation. However, e-government, e-mailing, and video conferencing were
found to have a non-significant relationship with corruption control. Therefore,
the study concluded that ICT application is a very crucial determinant of good
governance. Based on the findings of this study it is recommended that the
government develop user-friendly e-government websites and improve the use of
e-mailing and video conferencing to allow government officials and citizens to
share information easily and quickly. Also, it is recommended that the
government create awareness of e-government among citizens. Practically, this
study provides empirical suggestions for civil servants and citizens on ways they
can use e-government platforms to effectively impact the provision of services by
the government.
