H.E. the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Mohamed Jamil Mulla announced the launch of the Saudi e-Government Achievement Award. The organization of this Award (www.egovaward.gov.sa), is being supervised by e-Government Program (YESSER).
Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry’s headquarters in Riyadh on Sunday 20 December, 2009 (3 Muharram 1431H.), the Minister said that this Award emanates from the support given to the march of development being witnessed by the Kingdom in the information and communications technology (ICT) field and in line with the government’s plan to shift to an information society which offers easy, quick and secured services and assist in improving and developing government measures.
Eng. Mulla explained that the Award aims at encouraging government agencies to provide better and easy-to-use services for individuals and business customers and inspire these agencies to work together for providing integrated, high-efficiency services for individuals and businesses and highlight and value the efforts been provided by e-services and e-government teams within government agencies.
He pointed out that the Award will support the e-government program (YESSER) as it will encourage relevant government agencies to participate in enhancing the national economy by providing more easy-to- use e-services to businesses, dissemination of the culture of “international best standards and practices” , encourage government agencies to adopt these practices while offering e-services and to open the doors for citizens to take part in the design of better e-government services.
For his part, the director general of e-government Program (YESSER) Eng. Ali Al-Samaa said that this Award comes within YESSERS’s programs which represent the concern of Saudi Arabia in implementing the concept of e-government transactions, adding that the Program assumes the role of coordination and support and the provision of support services for the Award and its committees without intervening in the arbitration and results of the Award.
He explained that on its first year, the Award will be confined to six categories. He said that first award will be given to those government agencies that have contributed significantly to the development, improvement and delivery of e-services to citizens and residents for improving the productivity and efficiency in serving people better.
The second award will be given to those government agencies that distinguish themselves in using information and communication technology to provide e-services between other government agencies.
He pointed out that the third award will be given to those government agencies that have contributed to improving the business environment with a focus on initiatives that attract investment and new projects to the Kingdom and contribute directly to increasing the national economy.
The fourth award will be given to government agencies which have the “best-in-class” electronic maturity. Best utilization of ICT, improvement of business processes and human resources development along with other initiatives that aim to transfer the agency to a paperless environment which will be the main factors of evaluation.
The fifth award recognizes a high degree of excellence in the quality of project implementation and contributes to serving the Saudi society and its development, enhancing the electronic accessibility and transiting Saudi to the Information Society. These projects provide an enabling technology solution that “bridge gaps” between government agencies to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. The award aims to raise awareness of the value created by these projects within government, regardless of their size or scope.
The last award of the categories of the Saudi e-Government Achievement Award will be granted to individual members of the public who participate in contributing creative and innovative e-service related concepts or ideas which may improve the quality of government e-services.