Citizens Acceptance of Online Services in Sri Lanka Police: Study on Police Clearance Online System

Abstract

The Police, as the main law enforcement agency in Sri Lanka, assure a society which is free from fear of crimes & violence by her vision statement. Ensuring the state security is vital because threat to the security is, undoubtedly, vulnerability for everything. The Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) is one of the proactive measures to assure the security and social tranquillity. PCC must be free from fraud and errors. The criticism towards issuing agency was to delay of processes, bureaucracy and corruption. In order to expedite the clearance process, in 2015, it was introduced a E-governance approach. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of this new on-line system and reviewing the level of customer satisfaction. This is the first and only research made on this new Police Clearance Certificate Issuing System (PCCIS) in Sri Lanka. The data in this qualitative research were gathered through questionnaires, interviews, literature survey and observations. The samples were selected in a manner which can be generalized the results to the whole population. Though the Sri Lanka Police (SLP) assure the issuing of PCC within 14 days, this research revealed that 58% of the applicants don’t get it within that period. But it was revealed that the corruption and organizational bureaucracy have been remarkably reduced with the online mechanism. The attractiveness & user friendliness of the system is comparatively good. The recommendations, made by this study, will contribute for further enhancements. Unfortunately, majority of the people in Sri Lanka are not conversant with available police on-line services. Same time, unavailability of National Egovernment Platform and Data Warehouse, connecting the public & private agencies, is a big imperfection in the country