Dubai eGovernment Department (DeG) has announced its readiness for a change to a smart government and will meet government entities soon to devise a unified mobile transformation strategy.

Ahmad Bin Humaidan, director general of Dubai eGovernment, said the initiative is based on the government’s stress on customer satisfaction through round-the-clock services using the latest technologies.

“According to the latest Google study, the UAE is in the lead worldwide with 62 per cent smartphone penetration rate and 18 per cent growth rate annually,” Bin Humaidan noted.

“We hereby confirm our full readiness to respond to the requirements of the new stage, which is an extension to the eTransformation of eGovernment that we began 13 years ago. Together, with our government partners, we have already developed many applications that represent a starting point for the provision of more creative applications, thanks to our unique experience of leading the first eGovernment in the region,” he added.

“We will support our partners with a modern infrastructure, a secure unified government information network, sophisticated platforms and government resources planning systems that are currently being used by 42 Dubai government entities for managing their internal resources in a highly efficient manner.

“In addition, we have shared services that are optimized by these entities for providing their services to the public. These services are enablers that will inevitably integrate with the requirements of achieving the smart government’s objectives,” Bin Humaidan explained.

The coming stage will witness a creative competition for providing smartphone applications, Bin Humaidan said, noting that the most successful of these applications would be those which provide integrated and easy to use eServices to customers, enabling them to implement these services via their mobile phones without the need to visit the concerned government entities, thereby easing their daily transactions with the government.

Customers will be satisfied only if these apps provide integrated services so this will require further co-ordination between government entities and the private sector, he said.

Bin Humaidan urged the government entities to provide applications that have easy to use features and to focus on meeting customers’ needs by arranging homogenous services in one application instead of focusing on increasing the number of applications and repeating the information contained in them.

As for implementing the transformation into smart government, Bin Humaidan said: “We have recently launched My ID initiative, which will allow customers a unified access to all the eServices provided by Dubai government entities via smartphones or the Internet by means of only one identification that eliminates the need for customers to register with each government entity separately.

“The initiative, which makes use of the ID card issued by the Emirates Identity Authority, will actually be put into operation in October this year.”

Dubai eGovernment has begun to implement the initiative using three major tracks: activating all eServices via smartphone apps; creating new mGovernment services and finally inviting government entities to devise unified mobile strategies for transformation into smart government.

DeG currently has a package of smartphone apps and mobile services including mPay for mobile payment of government services and fees; mDubai for most used government services, eComplain tracking, government news and information; and SMS Dubai for SMS based services between customers and Dubai government. – TradeArabia News Service