After having recently separated from the Ministry of Labour, MOSD today has been tasked to deliver efficient services in the most cost effective manner as possible. And as a fledgling IT department, its Assistant under Secretary for IT, Human Resource and Finance, Maha Al-Mandeel has found that with the right technology, the IT department can do more with less.
“One thing that makes MOSD a special case is that Her Excellency the Minister is an IT oriented person. This feature especially gives the IT department a strong and continuous support,” says Al-Mandeel.
Going forward, MOSD’s technology driven roadmap build out will be dominated by three major areas of investment – networking infrastructure, building an identity driven architecture and investing in open source applications from the backend right to the desktop.
In order to set the ball rolling, the ministry has also formed an alliance with Novell to help it build a flexible, scalable and secure environment. Using Open Source has also become a mainstay of operations for the team.
Getting networked
But as it goes with all new ventures, MOSD also has to face up to its challenges. “One of the major challenges we need to overcome lies in successfully building our own separate LAN and WAN network that will connect us with 20 remote sites and to the government data network. So technologies that we use and alliances we strike will play a critical role,” she adds.
Currently using the Ministry of Labour's network for its infrastructure needs, MOSD is preparing to go independent in a number of areas - including infrastructure requirements. Investments planned on this front are expected to lead MOSD within the next five years, to become an e-Ministry and part of the Bahrain e-Government with paperless transactions, providing on-line information and services to other organisations and citizens.
“The Bahraini government is moving towards providing full services using the Internet as part of the e-government project. Our efforts are aimed at making our Ministry one of the fastest ones to launch our services over the next two years,” she adds.
Following the infrastructure roll out, the MOSD’s 600 employees will be servicing a wide variety of citizens and groups through its remote sites that will be connected through the LAN & WAN and the MOSD portal.
Going open
MOSD’s commitment to Open Source is yet another important facet of the region’s strong commitment to standards. According to Al Mandeel, the initiatives like the one at MOSD are expected to change the map of IT usage in Bahrain over the next 10 years.
“Open source systems and models that have been adopted at the government sites have proved to be a stable and secure option. Besides which, they have also enabled an environment that can easily be integrated, scalable and built using available technology that is in the market in a number of flavours,” she adds.
This ministry in particular is leading the way with Open Source standardization, which includes a migration to Suse Linux on the desktop. Following the completion of its backend phase, the IT department plans to begin its desktop migration by 2007. But the ROI is estimated to still be sometime away.
“For us at MOSD the main benefit from phase 1 has been the ability to break free from proprietary products. Now we can go Linux or windows, because the infrastructure is flexible enough to handle both. With such an environment, we believe that we have become stronger simply because we have the options and the strength to choose things that we had never had before,” Al-Mandeel remarks.
Linux has also made its way into the project at all levels starting from the LAN which uses Suze Linux integrated with Novell products. This project also makes MOSD the first ministry to deploy end-to-end Linux on the Novell platform.
Stacking it all up
Seamless integration and a business-oriented workflow is a pillar to the success of MOSD. In order to ensure this objective, the technology initiative is focused on enabling systems, process and business integration that are secure and identity driven.
“Systems integration between MOSD and other government entities will be a key factor toward the e-MOSD especially to enable proper electronic work flow and facilitate the services provided to citizens. In the first half of this year we focused on investing in preparing our infrastructure to function as the backbone of all MOSD systems to be developed later,” Al-Mandeel says.
With the centralisation of network and management, MOSD also wanted to invest in power tools for network managers that will enable them to do more with less.
“Right now we have only nine people, which poses a challenge by itself given the size of the ministry and the amount of work we have to deliver on. By centralising the management and giving more powerful tools to our network administrators, we hope that we would minimise the effort required and also the downtime for the end-user and facilitate faster troubleshooting services,” she adds.
The identity driven approach also fits nicely into this piece. “We believe that identity management tools would automate a lot of services, secure transaction within the ministry infrastructure and help building user friendly systems. With the remote sites in place, the need is to keep track of security on desktops, ensure proper IT maintenance service, desktop management and automated services, especially with the constraint of limited IT staff at hand,” Al-Mandeel shares.
Dubai Municipality has put 90% of its services online, 12 months ahead of schedule. The most used online services are DM clinic health certificates, no objection certification, food control health certificates and Dubai Central Lab block certificates.
Text of report by Hugh Naylor, "Ministry launches e-government project, published in English by Jordan Times website on 20 November
The government formally inaugurated its long-awaited e- government programme yesterday with the intention of streamlining bureaucracy and enhancing access to the internet in rural areas.
In front of an audience at the Royal Scientific Society, Minister of Information and Communications Technology Omar Kurdi said the e- government website would eventually act as a one-stop gateway to the government.
"We will soon be able to provide citizens and businesses will all government-related information without having to switch from one website to another."
The programme, which is slated to cost JD45m until its scheduled completion in 2009, seeks to improve communication between ministries, citizens and businesses by offering internet browsers quick access to information.
"People won't have to go to two or three ministries in a single day to get their passports renewed - they can just go online, fill out a form, and the ministries will do the rest. E-government will be citizen-centric and will save all of us time and money," he said.
"At the end of the day," explained Kurdi, "we're looking for e- government to act as a mechanism for public sector reform."
The ministry is pushing for e-government to serve as a tool to expand greater internet access to rural communities. As part of the ambitious programme, the ministry plans to install 5,000km of fibre optic cables, expand broadband internet access to 3,200 public schools, 23 community colleges and roughly 120 internet knowledge stations by the end of this year.
Hasan Hourani, director of the e-government programme, said the ministry has begun training 8,000 government employees and managers of the country's knowledge stations in how to navigate the e- government project's website.
"Internet technology has only modestly penetrated Jordan," he told The Jordan Times, "but our training courses and programmes will help change mindsets and get more people familiar with this technology."
Internet penetration in Jordan currently stands at around 7.5 per cent out of which three per cent are paying subscribers.
But trimming down bureaucracy and increasing greater internet usage, according to observers, will require more than just a transition to a stronger reliance on internet technology. "There is no substitute for good management," said economist Yusuf Mansour, adding that dependence on internet technology alone won't fix deeper structural problems in the government. "Changing the country's mindset is the most important thing - not hardware and software. This can be done with good and consistent management," he said. "But there is a need for the government to push for information technology adoption," he added.
Mansour also said that a constant reshuffling of cabinets and changes in ministerial posts could derail the e-government's management progress, setting back its full implementation.
Mohammad Masri of the University of Jordan's Centre for Strategic Studies, however, said there are serious flaws in the way the ministry went about preparing Jordan for its impending transition to e-government.
"If you ask people in the street about it, they simply don't know what e-government is," he said. "The government should have had a better strategy that informed and prepared people of the programme, which would have made it more effective from the start."
He commented that the ministry should have implemented a gradual, grass-roots and community-based approach to further awareness of information technology to rural areas.
"People in rural areas are used to seeing their documents and papers stamped in front of them. Making transactions over the internet is a completely foreign concept for them, and changing their ideas will take a lot of work."
If internet penetration doesn't proceed fast enough, Masri said he believed "e-government could become just a tool of elites."
But Musa Shteiwi, a sociologist at the University of Jordan, believes that if Jordan wants to enter the information technology age, a considerable effort must be made by the government. "How do you become an internet culture without rapidly promoting internet technology?" he said. "Jordan has a lot of potential to develop an internet culture."
Shteiwi said, however, that the government must be committed to keep positive momentum going. "It would be a waste if they [the government] got sidetracked; they must continue promoting these changes in a progressive way."
(c) 2006 BBC Monitoring Middle East. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
MUSCAT — The number of Internet subscribers in Oman rose to 92,126, including 12,900 customers of the ADSL service, in the first ten months of the year, according to statistics released by Omantel.
Subscribers of the Internet dial-up service totalled 48,846 and pre-paid 'Al Oufuq' card customers 24,350. The number of leased circuit customers was 242, "access and surf" subscribers 4,850 and 'other services' customers 889. "Omantel is endeavouring to develop its Internet services due to its qualitative development witnessed by the 'Oman Digital Society' project," the company said. Omantel introduced services for the users of fixed wireless telephone services in the rural areas.
Intel Chairman Unveils Egypt’s First ‘Digital Village’
In a small city near the Nile River where cars compete with cattle and modern conveniences are scarce, Intel Corporation is using computers and wireless technology to help Oseem’s 200,000 residents tap into vast “knowledge resources” on the Internet in hopes of bettering their lives.
“Technology has expanded what is possible for the people of Oseem,” said Intel Chairman Craig Barrett. “Intel is committed to support Egypt’s leaders in accelerating access to technology so its people can get better health care, education and work skills.”
Working with Egypt’s government, business and education leaders, Intel installed a state-of-the-art WiMAX network to connect two public schools, a health care center on wheels, a municipal building and an e-government services kiosk. Intel also donated and installed computers in the mobile health center and PC labs at the two schools where students and teachers can regularly connect to the outside world for the first time.
The Kuwaiti Cabinet is working on activating the road map of electronic government, said director general of Central Organization for Information Technology (COIT) Ali Al-Sherida on Monday. It will offer more material and moral support to the IT and communications sector, he said in the opening ceremony of the third Kuwait Exhibition of IT and Communications. The event is organized by Connection International Company in the exhibition center here. The COIT is formed under the Amiri Decree No 266 for 2006 and is tasked with laying out policies and plans for IT on the national level and supervising the e-government project, Al-Sherida said. It is also tasked with initiating the state electronic gateway and the Kuwait Information Network (KIN) as well as training the IT cadres.
The first stage of KIN aims to connect the government networks while the second stage will connect the private sector and individual ones to facilitate and accelerate the exchange of information, messages and documents efficiently and in privacy, Al-Sherida pointed out. He hailed the initiative of “Kuwaiti Information Citizen” being developed by the Regional Centre for Updating Information Programs in cooperation with the COIT. The initiative aims to train ordinary Kuwaitis and residents in Kuwait on using computers and the Internet. He also praised the Microsoft and Sesco programs to train Kuwaiti youth cadres on the IT-related jobs.
The third Kuwait Exhibition of IT and Communications offers a rare opportunity for decision makers and professionals to get acquainted with the latest developments in the IT and communications industries, said Connection International board chairman Mansour Al-Mussa. The ordinary visitors can also exchange views and information with professionals on networks, data bases, application of administrative and financial programs, he added. The four-day event, sponsored by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Ismail Khudair Al-Shatti who is also Chairman of COIT, gathers several international IT companies.
His Excellency Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Development for the Government Sector.
The support to the conference underscores the importance placed by the Ministry in
implementing e-Services and thereby enhancing operational efficiency and productivity.
'The Ministry is committed to the Federal e-Government project of creating a massive e-network
that integrates the communication channels between federal staff members and customers,'
said His Excellency Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Development for the Government
Sector. 'Our support to the e-Services conference will provide us with a platform to discuss the
future of e-services in the UAE and the challenges faced by governmental organisations and
businesses.'
He added:
'The Ministry supports events that will add momentum to the e-Services initiatives
undertaken by the UAE. We continue to encourage federal employees and
businesses to enhance their performance by better understanding and
implementing the concept of e-Services.
His Excellency Sultan Bin
Saeed Al Mansouri,
Minister of Development
for the Government
Sector, headed the first
meeting of the e-
Government project
management office
members today, at the
Ministry's office in Dubai.
His Excellency Minister of Labor Dr Ali Al Kaabi; Dr Ali Bin Abood, the undersecretary of the
Ministry of Development for Government Sector; Mohammad Al Shihhi, undersecretary at
Ministry of Economy; Salem Al Shair, e-Services director at Dubai e-Government; Ahmad Kajoor,
assistant undersecretary at the Minister of Labor; and Abdallah Al Majid administration manager
of Computer and follow up at the Ministry of Development for Government Sector; attended.
The organizational structure of the e-Government project management office was unveiled at
the meeting at which members also decided to speed up the execution of various e-Governmentrelated
strategies.
'The members underscored their commitment to implement the e-Government project at the
meeting through effective plans and strategies,' said Al Mansouri. 'The meeting also decided
to leverage on the expertise of the private sector as a strategic partner in speeding up the
project, which will have a significant role in the economic development of the UAE.'
He added: 'Through regular meetings, we will monitor the performance of the project, which will
be divided into two phases - Public Projects that will executed through the Ministry of
Development for Government Sector and Private Projects, which the various ministries should
implement themselves under the supervision of the Ministry of Development for Government
Sector.'
The objective of the executive office of the of the e-Government program is to formulate plans
and projects; supervise their implementation; provide assistance, issue budget reports; monitor
the yearly activities of the e Government program and brief the Council of Ministers.
H.E Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) issued an order on the formation of a team to determine the strategy of E-Government.
ccording to instructions of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, on the initiative of the Dubai E-Government to facilitate the lives of people and business companies in their dealings with the government and contribute to the consolidation of standing in the Dubai vanguard in the knowledge economy.
The team headed by Abdullah Al Madani, CEO of the Corporate Support Services and nine members from the four agencies; Traffic and Roads Agency, Public Transport Agency, Rail Agency and the Marine Agency in addition to the members of concerned departments in this field such as the IT, Customer Service, Marketing and Corporate Communication and Strategy and Corporate performance.
Mr. Abdallah said: "Through this team, we want to participate in determining the vision and strategy of the RTA e-government, review and adoption of the operational plan to launch services on the Internet, in accordance with the standards of the Dubai E-Government and review and adoption of the RTA and its agencies website design according to the best international standards in addition to preparing to attend workshops in order to implement the approved tasks and review the technical reports of the project and prepare comments on it and discuss it with the Consultant of IT Department (IBM) and to improve the final products of the project, under the supervision of the IT's Project Management Office.
He added that the team should prepare a work plan and the timetable for implementation and raise it to HE Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of the RTA for final approval within a period not exceeding two weeks from the date of issuing the order of formation of this team. The Team also should raise the summary reports periodically to the Chairman of the Board shows the most important achievements and constraints if there is.
