IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Five of the major development projects planned and announced by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, including the provision of copies of labour contracts and job offers with visa applications which was supposed to be launched next month, were put temporarily on hold due to the lack of human resources, disclosed a senior official. Having taken a big leap in the field of e-government by being the first federal department to implement the e-dirham system and by being one of the pioneers in using the e-forms, the ministry finds itself currently unable to materialise its other major electronic development projects because of the shortage of financial and human resources, said Ahmed Khajoor, the ministry’s Assistant Undersecretary for Planning and Manpower.

Khajoor said that this sector is not being able to carry out the projects assigned to it and that the annual budget allocated to it is not being utlised properly because of the interference of three other ministries in the selection and specifications of the equipment and the provision of the ministry’s specific needs of computers and software.

“The entire sector, which carries on its shoulders the responsibility of developing the ministry’s electronic infrastructure and computerising all the transactions, has only 12 employees, who instead of dedicating their time to development projects, find themselves involved in the daily administrative works, and in following up 1,200 users of the system in 47 labour and social affairs offices across the country,” he said, in reference to the postponement of the project of comparing the labour contract with the job offer letter furnished by a company with the visa application for new every new worker. This project aimed at curbing the practices of duping workers and offering them fake contracts with lots of privileges, which companies never fulfil when the worker lands in the country.

Elaborating on the shortage of human resources, Khajoor said that the ministry’s failure to offer good salaries and packages for experienced IT professionals is resulting in appointing staff without experience be they UAE nationals or expatriates.

“We find ourselves in a Catch-22 situation where some people require training, but the civil service law does not allow us to enroll them in any training course outside the ministry before they complete at least six or seven months in service. So, the result is that we get people whom we cannot properly utilise in our development projects, and at the same time whom we teach from the scratch. But after some time, they leave us for better offers elsewhere, “he explained, observing that professionals in this field are in big demand, and disclosing that four of the experienced staff at his department quit in less than a year.

The Assistant Under-Secretary for Planning and Manpower cited the example of one of his staff who gets Dh1, 800 per month at the ministry, while he was offered a salary of Dh10, 000 elsewhere with a car and housing allowance.

Another major project that is put on hold due to similar problems is the transfer of the ministry’s database to a bigger and more efficient system.

Autor: Sanaa Maadad

Quelle: Khaleej Times, 30.09.2004