IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

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 issuance of a decree for the establishment of an IT authority in Kuwait will compel the government to hasten remaining steps for the implementation of the e-government, said Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Dr. Ismaeel Al-Shatti on Wednesday.

Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), he said, "The establishment of the IT authority is one of the basic requirements allowing our Singaporean partners to help Kuwaiti in implementing the e-government." He added that his visit to Singapore was to complete negotiations over the establishment of this authority for which the decree had been issued two weeks ago, as well as to follow up requirements for launching the e-government.

The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Rashid Al-Tabtabaei, said the ministry was the first in Kuwait to provide for its paperwork to be completed via the Internet.

Al-Tabtabaei, who was speaking during a news conference after a reception in honor of civil servants working on the electronic government project, said the ministry's website was linked to the electronic government and the planned Hukuma (Government) Mall.

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Interior Ministry announced Sunday launching of the first automated machine for self-information service that enables citizens and expatriates to know procedures and documents needed to carry out transactions related to the ministry. General Manager of the General Department for information systems at the ministry Lieutenant-General Adel Al-Munayes said in a press statement that the machine displays information on its screen in both Arabic and English, and provides services related to traffic violations, bails, driving licenses, Kuwaiti passports, and vehicle cards.