More than 360 officials, representatives and experts from about 210 Saudi government agencies met in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss important aspects of the initiative, said Ali bin Saleh Al-Soma, director general of the Kingdom's e-government program (Yesser).
“The second stage of Yesser was launched after this high-profile workshop on Wednesday discussed the whole range of issues involved in implementing the initiative,” said Al-Soma.
He said Saudi Arabia was at an advanced stage of implementing the e-government initiative and the whole range of public services are being offered online or electronically.
“Our vision now is to enable the Kingdom to achieve fully-developed e-government infrastructure to offer customer-friendly and secure multiple e-government services,” said the Yesser chief.
The action plan seeks to train and preserve permanent e-government resources, said Al-Soma.
The project also seeks to enhance skills to ensure the efficient handling of e-government tools, promote cooperation and innovation culture as well as maximize efficiency of e-services provided by government agencies and independent public entities in Saudi Arabia.
Yesser has been assigned the task of developing and implementing the action plans and strategies in cooperation with government agencies. The First Action Plan from 2006 to 2010 has already been completed. Referring to the Yesser-organized workshop last Wednesday, Al-Soma said that such an initiative reflects the efforts exerted to activate and reinforce real partnership among all government agencies on the e-initiative.
The workshop discussed various perspectives including how to reinforce the role played by e-government committees, in addition to enhancing shared national systems and e-services that have been given go-ahead by the Saudi government.
“At the concluding session, bilateral discussions were also held among all attending parties in which the significant requirements for pushing the e-government initiative were discussed in addition to providing full information for all relevant inquiries,” said Al-Soma.
He pointed out the Kingdom has been keen on achieving the vision of a digital economy, as well as higher levels of prosperity and welfare for citizens and expatriates.
In order to achieve this vision, Saudi Arabia has taken successive steps to develop the business process and disseminate the concept as well as information about e-services among various government agencies.
The Saudi e-government portal (www.saudi.gov.sa) is the central government portal through which not only citizens, residents, businesses and visitors but also other government organizations and businesses can access e-government services online.
This approach has been chosen as the best way to enable the delivery of government services in an efficient manner. It also aims to make e-services accessible anytime from anywhere on the Internet.
Broad e-service accessibility is achieved by providing services via the portal either by integrating with other government agencies or through links to their websites.
In addition to the above, the portal is an important outlet of frequently updated news and information about events regarding e-services.
It also provides a directory of government agencies besides links to Saudi regulations, laws, plans and initiatives. The Saudi government attaches high significance to the e-government concept.
It strongly believes in the huge benefits of e-government for the national economy.
The Kingdom's Ministry of Communications and IT launched the e-government Program in 2005 in conjunction with the Finance Ministry and the Communication & Information Technology Commission (CITC).
