It may be noted that the Sultanate, under the wise leadership of His Majesty, has been surging ahead on the fast lane of the digital superhighway and has given its undivided attention to the development of Omani nationals’ skills in the area of IT. Through the implementation of the government IT Training and Certification programme, more than 45,000 government officials have been trained. Another project offering specialised training to civil servants is being implemented, with a view to qualifying and encouraging nationals to come up with new digital innovations. The Community Knowledge Centres, being established across the Sultanate, underscores His Majesty’s belief in the importance of e-Government services and making information available online. The Royal directive to grant laptops to each beneficiary family of the social insurance who has at least one child enrolled in public school is another step in the right direction. The number of National PC Initiative beneficiaries will be more than 113,000. A 20-million-rial fund is allocated for this scheme, which is expected to provide the impetus for long-term growth.
Over the years, the Sultanate has successfully implemented numerous inter-connected and integrated projects as part of its national strategy to build a digital society. The National Data Centre, the Centre for Information Security and the e-Payment Gateway have received immense response from netizens. Moreover, the official e-Government services portal was launched to serve as the main access to information and these projects are going hand in hand with the promulgation of legislations regulating e-transactions and services. The idea is to engage all segments of society in the digital transformation witnessed in various domains.
Thanks to these initiatives, the country is ranked 13th internationally in the field of e-Government readiness, 19th in the area of government success in IT promotion, and 10th in the attention government accords to IT sector. The World Economic Forum report on global competitiveness in the IT sector affirmed the progress made by the Sultanate. The country has witnessed great improvement in results compared to previous years, having been ranked in the 41st position in the Networked Readiness Index among 138 countries. It is an impressive and outstanding progress achieved in a comparatively short period of time. We congratulate the Sultan Qaboos e-Governance award winners. The achievement should act as a catalyst to push these institutions to the next level and help them create a citizen-centric environment for governance.
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Quelle/Source: Oman Tribune, 15.12.2011
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