RIYADH, 1 July 2005 — Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Hussayen said his ministry would soon be switching over to e-governance with the signing of a contract to install an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
Once the system is running, an integrated database would be in place enabling about 4,000 employees of the ministry to share the resources in the headquarters and branch offices all over the Kingdom.
The minister signed a multi-million riyal ERP project with the US software giant Oracle for acquisition of its e-business suite recently.
The project will be supervised by Deputy Minister of Planning and Development Loyay Al-Mussallam. The planned duration of the project is 30 months.
The minister said the state-of-the-art system would allow their employees full access to the database facilitating not only official transactions in a paperless environment but also to interact with suppliers and technical personnel smoothly.
“It’s an important step toward privatization of the water sector. Overseas investors will find it easier to communicate with us and have access to the data they are looking for.”
Spelling out the details of the project, Al-Hussayen said the e-system would help them manage their major operations, including human resources, financial and inventory control, procurement, network system, operation and maintenance and customer relations.
The ERP system would be started on a trial basis as part of a pilot project six months from now. This would give them an idea of where it needs to be fine-tuned.
Sami A. Abuhilal, head of the IT Department in the ministry, said the system would expedite the process of decision-making in the ministry, since access to all the data would be in real time.
“The ERP will pave the way for e-government setup in a paperless environment. It will also make it easier for citizens to interact with the government in obtaining any data or downloading any application form,” he said, adding that a salient feature of the system is that all departments would be inter-linked, making file work a feature of the past.
Abuhilal said the Kingdom’s future plans call for the privatization of the water and electricity sectors.
It was therefore of crucial importance that prospective foreign investors should have access to all relevant data for the process of decision-making.
