VietNamNet Bridge – From July 2012, 95 deputies of the Hanoi People’s Council have been equipped with iPad 2.

“Deputies are provided with iPads as an effective working tool and to reduce the use of written documents,” said manager of the Hanoi People’s Council Office, Mr. Bui Duc Hieu.

“I’m wondering whether deputies use iPads to read documents or check mails or to play games and read online newspapers,” questioned Dr. Le Dang Doanh, a senior economist.

Doanh also said that to buy iPads for all 95 deputies, Hanoi would have to pay a billion dong in the time of economic difficulty. It is cheaper to buy laptops for deputies. Laptops are also more convenient at work.

According to Hieu, each deputy usually receives over ten kilos of documents in each people’s council meeting. The expenditure for sending documents to them via post is hundreds of million dong (tens of thousand USD) each meeting.

Hieu added that equipping iPad 2 to deputies is a step to implement e-government. “Many provinces have equipped their deputies with laptops. Recently, National Assembly deputies were provided with laptop, which is priced up to VND28 million ($1,400)/unit. An iPad 2 is less than VND20 million ($1,000)/unit. The fund for this project is over VND3 billion ($150,000) but it is not only spent in buying iPad,” Hieu explained.

“If you observe deputies at meetings, you will see that they cannot use iPads for entertainment because the working speed at the hall is very urgent,” he said.

Mr. Le Van Giap, director of an IT firm – SharePlus Corp, iPad is designed for entertainment so it cannot work as effective as a laptop.

“Before giving iPads to deputies, we organized a one-day training course on how to use this tool at work. I’m not sure that how will they use the iPads. That’s their job. Perhaps they will surf the Internet to look for more information for discussion at the hall. But I’m sure that all of them have to focus on working during meetings,” Hieu said.

Deputy Nguyen Tung Lam, Secretary General of the Hanoi Union of Scientific and Technological Associations, said that it is very convenient to read documents on the iPad.

“This equipment enables us to search documents easily. It is very small, very light and very convenient for our job. We don’t have to carry packages of documents with us to meetings,” Lam said.

Deputy Pham Van Cham from Dong Anh district had the same idea, saying that deputies could surf the Internet very easy and quickly.

Most deputies said that they rarely used the iPad to play game or watch movies.

A National Assembly deputy, who wanted to be anonymous, said that at the cost of nearly VND20 million, it is better to equip deputies with a laptop.

“There is no problem for deputies to use an iPad. National Assembly deputies were provided with desktops in the last term. Recently, they were equipped with laptops. Thai deputies have used iPads three months before us,” said journalist Ho Quang Loi, a member of the Hanoi People’s Council.


Compiled by Tran Cham