From E-Government to Good Governance and from Good Governance to Development... The Arab world in the global E-Government readiness report 2005 Arab E-government

The decision was announced yesterday during a federal cabinet meeting which was held under the chairmanship of Shaikh Mohammed and attended by deputies Prime Minister Shaikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Shaikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The cabinet approved the state budget bill for the current fiscal year for presentation to the President for endorsement.

The ministerial committee will be set up under Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed, Minister of Presidential Affairs.

The move came in the wake of complaints of dely by some ministries and government departments in delivering services to the citizens.

Yesterday’s cabinet meeting also approved a memorandum by Shaikh Hamdan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Ministry of Public Works, in favour of appointing a new board of directors for Shaikh Zayed Housing programme, under the chairmanship of the Minister and membership of Jabr Al Suwaidi, Khalfan Harib, Mubarak Al Shamsi, Hamid Al Abdouli, Hamad bin Ghileitah, Sultan Al Kharji, Mohammed Saeed Al Dhanhani, Abdul Aziz Al Za’abi, and Dr Tariq Al Tayer. The meeting examined the 2004 closing accounts for Shaikh Zayed Housing Programme. Another memorandum which received the cabinet nod was by the Ministry of Finance and Industry.

The memorandum calls for improving cash management system, decentralisation of procurement, contracting and payment procedures, and empowering the ministries to undertake processing of transactions pertaining to their own personnel.

It also approved another memorandum by Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, in favour of amending Article 40 of Federal Law No. 4 for 1976 on the by-laws of the UAE University.

Under the amendment, the remunerations of the university’s faculty and staff will be fixed according to the university’s regulations in force, thus eliminating the need for referring such matters to the cabinet.

The cabinet also acted favourably on Economy Minister Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi’s memorandum calling for the electronic system currently in use at Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED) to be applied in all the emirates.

The cabinet instructed Dubai e-government to put this order into effect, in coordination with the Ministry of Economy and DED.

The cabinet agreed to transfer to the Ministry of Economy all the powers and functions related to intellectual property rights which used to be exercised by the Ministries of Finance and Industry and Information and Culture.

The cabinet examined a memorandum by Minister of Presidential Affairs Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed in favour of amending Federal Law No. 1 for 1972, on the functions of the ministries and powers of the ministers. It also agreed to bring the General Authority of Information and E-government, in the Ministry of Finance and Industry, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Governmental Development.

It also agreed to the UAE hosting the 13th meeting of the GCC Ministers of Culture and the 23rd meeting of the GCC Cultural Committee. After reviewing several memoranda by the ministers, Shaikh Mohammed ordered that gifts presented to the UAE guests should be of local produce, so as to reflect the country’s heritage and motivate citizens to further improve their products.