“When it comes to enabling Government to citizen transparency, Saudi Arabia must be credited for its earnest use of social media. A good example is the twitter account for the Ministry of Commerce which receives complaints from citizens and provides an update of the actions undertaken. In the future this can only get better,” explained Dr Esam Al Wagait, Dean of e-Transactions and Communication, King Saud University.
“We are currently working on e-Service integration with other government organisations. Our latest completed project helps the Ministry of Higher Education connect its system for students abroad with King Saud University’s internal systems,” continued Essam.
Dr Essam is one of the many speakers attending the 4th Annual Kingdom e-Government Summit on May 27th and 28th at the InterContinental Riyadh. Organised by French deal facilitation group naseba and supported by the Yesser programme, it features local and international experts including Saleh Al Awaji, Deputy Director General, Department of Zakat and Income Tax; and Dr Ramazan Altinok, Chief of e-Government Advisory Group, Prime Minister’s Office in Turkey.
The two days are providing government organisations with an opportunity to work with global leading e-Service providers. Currently, there is a new push for government agencies in the Kingdom to make their services available online. For instance, the Ministry of Interior, represented by the National Information Centre, recently added 49 new electronic services which can be accessed through the national e-Government portal. These new added services include queries for personal information, passport information, residency, recruitment, vehicles and traffic violations. In addition, enquiries about travel history, and results and appointments for the Ministry’s e-Employment system can be accessed online.
International e-Service providers attending the summit include Huawei, SAP and Dutch-based solution provider Digidentity, which has worked with the Dutch government to develop DigiD system, considered to be amongst the best in the world.
“It is essential for governments to facilitate an identity system for citizens. As long as the government facilitates with the right vision and with the right partners, privacy can be delivered without compromises. Data protection and privacy is the main focus for Digidentity. We believe that each citizen in the world must have the availability to have a secure online identity, completely user-centric,” explained Marcel A Wendt, CEO and founder of Digidentity.
Nicholas Watson, Managing Director at naseba confirmed “This summit is bringing together global experience, with experts from Singapore, Netherlands, Turkey and UAE coming to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to share their ideas and best practices. This allows the [Saudi] government to work with these experts to further improve their systems and become regional leaders in e-Government.”