Celebration marks completion of Yesser e-government first phase

A major celebration was organized in Riyadh yesterday to mark the completion of the first phase of the Kingdom’s Yesser e-government program and the launch of the same initiative’s second phase for 2012 to 2016.
The occasion was attended by about 200 senior Saudi officials representing various government agencies, including Minister of Finance Ibrahim Al-Assaf and Minister of Communications and IT Mohammed Jamil Mulla.
"The Kingdom has, in fact, made substantial progress and has designed and set up several facilities to meet e-governance requirements," said Ali bin Saleh Al-Soma, Yesser director general, on this occasion. “The facilities offer the latest technologies including virtualization and provide a range of services online as well as the servers on demand to various departments of the government to facilitate e-initiatives,” he added.
Al-Soma said the aim is to make the use of e-services easier and more convenient. He also lauded the efforts of the Saudi government, which has taken all necessary steps to promote e-governance. All users interested in downloading government service applications in the Kingdom are able to visit the e-government portal and browse through the applications that they need.
Al-Soma reviewed the main achievements of the first phase of the program as well as the prospects for phase two. He commended the enormous support the e-government program enjoys from the Kingdom’s leadership.
He said: "The concerted efforts of all government agencies contributed directly to the realization of these achievements." The Yesser program, he said, provides the required information with high accuracy, timeliness and required security.
Referring to the progress made by the Kingdom on the e-government program, he said Yesser will go a long way in improving service delivery, raise the productivity and efficiency of the public sector besides providing better services to individuals and business. He said Saudi Arabia attaches high importance to the e-government concept and its realization. It strongly believes in the huge benefits e-government entails for the national economy, he added.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) recently announced Saudi Arabia occupies ninth place in the world in terms of electronic participation. It is No. 2 in the GCC in terms of providing electronic services. The ranking was according to the United Nation e-Government Survey in 2012. Saudi Arabia also ranked by the UN No. 41 out of 193 countries in using e-government. The Saudi government has 1,200 electronic services provided by 144 government agencies.
The Kingdom’s e-government program, Yesser, translates the government’s keen interest in implementing the e-government concept. It is part of many projects adopted by the government to achieve sustained growth and development in all aspects of life. The Kingdom launched the e-government initiative back in 2003 following a royal decree issued the same year. However, the MCIT established the e-government program formally in 2005 in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and the CITC.