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DEWA Honoured at First GCC eGovt Awards

MUSCAT - Qatar and Saudi Arabia won the top prizes in four of the five categories of the first GCC eGovernment awards announced and presented here on Wednesday. Bahrain took the first place in the fifth category.

The awards were given away by National Economy Minister Ahmed bin Abdulnabi Macki at a ceremony at the Majan Ballroom of the Al Bustan Palace Hotel, marking the finale of the 1^st GCC eGovernment Conference and Exhibition.

The Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation and Islam Web, also of Qatar, took the top honour in the e-Services and e-content categories.

In e-Services, the DEWA e-Bill Payment in the UAE and Bahrain’s e-Birth were the second and third prize winners, respectively, while the second and third places in e-content went to the Jeddah Municipal Portal and the GCAA website of the UAE.

The Saudi Payment System’ and the kingdom’s government bus service, took the top honour in the e-economy and e-project sections, respectively.

The Muscat Securities Market, or MSM, and e-Investor of Bahrain were placed second and third in e-economy.

In e-project, the second and third places were won by Najem Integrated Criminal Investigation System of Bahrain and SAP Billing and Customer Relationship Management of the United Arab Emirates.

Bahrain’s e-Government service was judged the best in e-maturity, with eRTA of the UAE and Oman’s e-Government portal winning the second and third places.

The jury panel for the award consisted of nine members and was chaired by Professor Peter.A. Bruck, Chairman of the World Summit Award.

The award, which will now be an annual event, is meant to recognise excellence in the delivery of e-projects and e-services in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, the three-day e-Government conference, which ended earlier in the day, called for setting up a special e-government’ section at the GCC Secretariat-general website to promote joint action by the six member states and creating a database of joint ventures.

The delegates suggested establishing a Gulf Index’ to evaluate e-government performance of the region’s countries and integrating ICT in all operations of the public and private sector companies and organisations in the GCC.

They also proposed providing incentives to public and private sectors and all segments of the society to make full use of e-government services, particularly ensuring that persons with disabilities benefit from these services.

The conference, in which top ICT policymakers and international IT experts took part, underlined the need to promote cooperation among research centres and universities in the Gulf to promote research and development in e-government.

ravindranath@khaleejtimes.com