Gulf government services account for
the remaining 5 percent only. Hence,
it is important to build this pillar.
According to Al Qaed, the second
axis revolves around starting the in-
tegration through establishing unified
networks among all the GCC coun-
tries.
Al Qaed underlined that eGovern-
ment Committee at the General
Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation
Council works on elevating the e-
readiness rates of GCC countries in
the global indexes, noting that the
current rate sways between the first
100 – 40 ranks. The committee is
seeking to push all the GCC coun-
tries to rank within the first 30 most
e-ready governments.
Meanwhile, Hamad Al Mansoori, Di-
rector General of UAE’s Telecommu-
nication Regulatory Authority, said:
“currently we must concentrate on
the level of electronic infrastructure in
the GCC countries and try to bridge
the gap in the rate of integration
among eGovernments in each coun-
try. This should in turn help achieve
equal rate for local eGovernment en
-
tities and thereby allow establishing
the Gulf linking”.
In the same context, Eng. Ali bin Sa-
lih Al Sama, Director General, Yes
-
ser programme, Saudi Arabia, said:
“the UN indicators showed that GCC
countries has potential electronic ca-
pabilities that enable them to realize
eTransformation, as well as imple-
ment the concept of smart govern-
ments. However, the most important
matter lies in unifying the rates of
eTransformation of government ser-
vices among GCC countries”.
Al Sama pointed out that e-link be-
tween eGovernment services that
the committee strives to fully estab-
lish is not new for the GCC countries
since it is already implemented in
some sectors, such as customs”.
Dr. Salim Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, CEO,
Information Technology Authority,
Oman, meanwhile, said that the ba-
sic structure developed by the Omani
government for eServices is not de-
pendent on individual e-presence of
each entity. It is based on a unified
government platform that offers inte-
grated services to the public allowing
them to complete all their required
transactions online.
Al Ruzaiqi highlighted that for this
purpose, the digital signature was
adopted online last year. This has al-
lowed the Omani citizens to access
any eService, upload their identity
documents and sign all forms online.
Reportage
