'We have achieved this great feat in just three years of launching our first batch of online services,' said Qassim Sultan, Director General of Dubai Municipality.
'This is an indication of the ever-increasing degree of e-service adoption by DM customers - both individuals and businesses,' he said. Sultan noted that the Municipality had taken just 18 months to achieve its first 100,000 e-transactions when e-services were first introduced in October 2001.
'The latest statistics strongly indicate that the level of e-service adoption is increasing at a very fast pace. It is obvious that our customers have become used to dealing with DM through the Internet and that online interaction has become the norm rather than the exception for many services. In fact, several services have completely moved to the Internet, with almost no customers submitting requests over the counter any more,' Sultan pointed out.
According to Hussain Lootah, Assistant Director General of Dubai Municipality for Planning and Buildings Affairs and Chairman of E-Government Committee at the Municipality the weekly average number of e-transactions has recently increased from 6,000 to 12,000.
'During last week itself we have completed 12,098 online transactions and 803 among them were done through online payments,' he said.
'Our aim is to convince more and more customers that the online services provide several key benefits over traditional service delivery channels. This, in turn, will increase e-service adoption to even higher levels,' said Lootah.
'On behalf of DM, I would like to thank our customers for working hard with us to make the DM e-Government Initiative an enormous success,' he said.
Lootah said the most popular among the online e-services was DM Clinic services for Medical Certificates, which recorded 194,730 online transactions.
The other widely used e-services are: Food Import Service (128,817 online transactions), DM Clinic Services for Occupational Health Certificates (110,408), Health Certificates-Food Control (88,857), DCL-Engineering Materials (83,887), Inspection and fines (78,472), DCL-Block certificates (66,752), No-objection certificates (56,221), Demarcation service (26,840) and Hotel Revenue (23,973).
'The IT Department at Dubai Municipality has been working very closely with other departments and customers to promote DM's online services and convince more customers to use them; as they provide visible benefits compared to over-the-counter services such as reducing number of customer visits, tracking transaction progress over the Internet, online payment etc.,' said Lootah.
'Our efforts are clearly paying off as the number of online transactions is increasing very quickly. We are constantly in touch with our customers to obtain their input and feedback regarding our online services. This helps us ensure that their requirements are being met,' he said.
'DM currently offers over 300 online services where 76 are primary services while the remaining cover informative, procedural and easy access to various forms required for applying for municipal services. It has also recently introduced an Online Payment Service that allows customers to pay their transaction fees through the Internet using credit cards or the e-Dirham Card,' added Lootah.
He said the maximum percentage of online payment was recorded with the Health Certificates-Food Control service, with 91 percent of customers choosing online payment to avail this service. While seven percent customers used online payment for availing Hazardous Waste Disposal services, four percent customers availed the Drainage and Irrigation service through online payments and three percent used online payment for availing Demarcation services.
Autor: Lara Lynn Golden
Quelle: AME Info, 07.05.2005
