If you’ve grown to hate paying your utilities and filling out your tax returns, not because of the expense, but because of the predictable hassle of dealing with the government’s laborious bureaucracy, relief is here. So, for those who have grown tired of fighting the crowds, running from line to line and window to window and occasionally having to pay off public employees just to find out what paperwork is needed to submit legal documents for your business, the government has heard your collective cry and is combating inefficiency and corruption with impartial and intelligent information technology.
All you need these days is a computer, an internet connection and, in minutes, you can pay bills and submit necessary paperwork in full. If you don’t believe the days of waiting will soon shrink, the Ministry of State for Administrative Development’s E-Government Program Director Sameh Bedair advises you to log on to www.egypt.gov.eg and find out for yourself. The program, launched in 2001 under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, is now one of the two main initiatives of the Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD) after the 2004 cabinet shuffle.
More than 600 government services for businesses and individuals are at least partially online, MSAD says. Granted, the vast majority only go as far as providing users with information on where to obtain services, but many also provide them with the option of printing government forms they would normally have to make special trips to obtain.
At least 25 deliver services directly to users by allowing them to pay bills, fill out and submit forms and have their requests delivered to their homes or offices in the mail or by courier.
“We hope that by the end of 2007, there will be great development in the concept of electronic government so that the average citizen can accomplish almost any task online,” says Bedair.
Among the services offered are new web portals that allow individuals to request replacement birth certificates and national ID cards, renew drivers’ licenses in Giza and parts of Cairo and apply for public universities. For businesses, users are able to pay phone and electric bills, obtain tax card request forms and track investor complaints submitted to the Ministry of Investment, in addition to other services specific to importers, exporters and investors.
Still, the E-Government Program is far from achieving its goals for its first phase ending in 2007, says Bedair. His office is now working on improving and expanding the offerings by the end of the year and through 2006. These include setting up online payment services for business sales and income taxes by the end of this year and electronically accepting individuals’ income tax returns by March 2006. By the end of 2005, they will allow companies to submit electronic signatures and set up an online booking system for EgyptAir.
Bedair says the EgyptAir contract was recently awarded to Egypt’s Ladis in partnership with IBM (see “A Closed Aviary” on pg. 72 for more on IBM’s involvement in e-government).
While public response has generally been positive, Bedair says relatively few take advantage of the offerings because of challenges facing his program, including limited electronic payment options and a lack of advertising. He says a small advertising campaign has only begun recently to get people’s attention.
“Before [this year], we purposely avoided publicity and advertising,” he says. “We did not want to say, ‘This is what we are going to do.’ We wanted to say, ‘This is what we have accomplished.’ Besides, the best publicity for us is word of mouth, when someone tries a service and goes and tells other people about it.”
Another problem that delays the mainstreaming of e-government is the public’s unfamiliarity with — and fear of — using debit or credit cards to make online payments. Bedair says most sites accepting payments offer users other options such as cash-on-delivery. Program officials are also gearing up to launch an option that could see people buying prepaid scratch cards that can be used to make payments online.
“People have really gotten used to using scratch cards, so we are working to make it an alternative payment option in the near future,” Bedair says. “We do not imitate what is being done in other countries because that might not be what people need here We think globally, and implement locally.”
But perhaps what makes the e-government initiative stand above past attempts to relieve the bureaucratic burden on the public is the attention paid by its creators to establishing a support network to assist people in obtaining services. There are two customer-support hotlines. One is a free, automated Arabic-only line, while the other features live, knowledgeable representatives providing help in Arabic and English at 2 piastres per minute. Again, if you don’t believe it, Bedair says, “Try it.”
“Our studies show that every 100,000 [users] will save the government LE 9 million per month. That’s one return,” he says. “But the bigger return is the satisfaction of citizens. A satisfied citizen is more productive and more interactive with the government, which leads to both financial gains and other intangible gains for the people themselves.”
Still, realistically, Bedair admits the program is a long way from perfection. In addition to the limited number of deliverable services presently on offer and a lack of payment options, many services are still only offered in Arabic because the program is relatively new and can easily be considered in its experimental stages. Either way, Bedair says, his office is aiming to reach the efficiency and quality of similar programs offered throughout the developed world.
“For us to catch up completely, it’s going to take time,” he says. “But for us to catch up in some services and offer them at an even higher quality than in other countries, I think it is possible, and we have already done so. I have had visits from Americans who were amazed that you can renew your driver’s license online and have it delivered to your door here. I told them, ‘Yes, and it will be delivered to your door in 48 hours.’”
Autor: Ahmed Namatalla
Quelle: Business Today Egypt, 13.09.2005
