It will take longer than planned before the electronic revolution takes over Jordan’s public departments and bureaucracy, but citizens will start seeing the benefits of at least a few pilot projects in e-government already by year's end, officials said on Sunday.
Out of eight pilot projects in Jordan’s e-government program, some appear unlikely to be implemented within the 12 to 18 month time-frame set last September, when the country's first e-government strategy was launched.
But things are nonetheless moving, Telecommunications and Post Minister Fawwaz Zu'bi, the head of a national task force for e-government, said in not so many words at the end of a meeting last week among representatives from public departments concerned by the e-drive.
Zu'bi admitted he was only "relatively satisfied" with progress reported so far on the pilot projects in the areas of government-to-government (G2G), government-to-business (G2B) and government-to-citizens (G2C) transactions. "A lot will depend on the legal framework, how we are going to approach that, and when it will be completed," he told the Jordan Times.
In G2B, taxation and social security, e-procurement, business registration and licensing, and telecommunications licensing and regulation were chosen for the readiness of the involved departments and the availability of e-savvy personnel therein.
In G2C, the e-revolution was planned to cover first real estate services — with the involvement in the project of the Land and Surveys Department and the Greater Amman Municipality — and motoring services.
These two pilot projects were chosen for their high visibility and the need, as one source closed to the projects put it, to "give immediate credibility to the e-government drive." The fast-track projects in the area of G2G consist in setting up an electronic guide to government employees and a government portal.
More than 30 between Cabinet members — including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Affairs Mohammad Halaiqa and Administrative Development Minister Mohammad Thneibat — the eight members of the e-government task force, public department representatives, and private sector representatives, discussed at yesterday's meeting their needs and obstacles on the way towards full computerization.
While representatives from some of the concerned government departments reported major steps forward in computerizing their operations, others had to admit they did not even have Internet access. "It is the beginning of a very long process — a process that, unless taken seriously and in a very collective way with all government departments involved, will be very difficult," Zu'bi said.
"But if there is collective effort and understanding among all of us that we will be doing this country a big favor, we could score a major success and we could see [the eight e-government pilot projects] happen very soon, one after the other."
Most presentations at yesterday's working meeting focused on the lack of an adequate legislative framework, especially now that an advanced telecommunications infrastructure — once the main hurdle to the development of information technology — has been put in place by Jordan Telecom, with a new high-speed digital data communications network which opened last month in the Greater Amman area and is expected to be extended to the Kingdom's main governorates by March.
Speakers yesterday presented the examples of several applications and government forms that are technically already available to the public via the Internet — such as telecommunications licensing and regulations, business registration and licensing, and services by the land and real estate department — but cannot be delivered on-line because electronic signatures are yet to be recognized as legally valid.
However, Zu'bi noted, an "IT package" of draft legislation, including regulations on e-signatures and e-commerce, is currently before the Lower House of Parliament and is expected to be promulgated during the current session, to end in March. — ( Jordan Times )
By Francesca Sawalha and Yacoub Abu Ghosh
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
