DM launches more Net services

Announcing the launch of the new eServices at a Press conference on yesterday, Qassim Sultan, Director-General of Dubai Municipality, and Hussein Nasser Lootah, Assistant Director-General of the Municipality for Planning and Building Affairs and Head of the eGovernment Committee, stressed the significance of the e-Government initiative as a strategic objective of the civic body.

"Our aim is to have maximum online clients so that we can improve customer service, enhance our processes, and reduce costs by saving time, money and efforts. Now, as we enter Phase Four of the e-Government initiative, we are having a total revamp of the e-Government IT infrastructure and are reviewing our e-government strategy through 2007," he said.

Lootah explained that eGovernment saves companies money. Whenever customers must drive to a government office or wait in a line, companies lose productive time from them. Lost productivity is spent money. If the employees need more than one trip, then each trip is spent money. Putting services on the Internet gets rid of the driving time and time spent waiting in a line. With DM's eGovernment system, return trips are just a few mouse clicks, he added.

The online advertisement permits service is part of the municipality's initiative to provide better services to its customers by minimising the frequency of customer visits to the civic body's offices and providing them the facility to apply and receive of the advertisements permit through the web application.

The Environment Planning Unit would provide the Clearance for Importation of Dangerous Goods service, for issuance of clearance for importation of dangerous goods that are used for industrial and commercial purposes. The municipality's eTendering Management System is designed for selling of civic body tender documents to its suppliers and processing the response tender documents online. The system will allow customers to view and purchase tender documents, download purchased tender documents, submit tender response document, withdraw tender response, check status of tenders, and view tender opening results.