The drive, called the Financial Support for Citizens with Limited Income service, involves full online registration for eligible citizens to receive monetary aid from the government.
It also concerns the integration of government systems and the databases of various ministries and private organisations such as the Ministry of Social Development, Central Informatics Organisation, and the General Organisation for Social Insurance, Commerce and Industry, among others.
To date, the service has received over 100,000 registrations, with the service’s website obtaining millions of hits, according to Ahmed Rafeeq Al Sawafiri, Project Manager for Financial Support for Citizens with Limited Income.
The Bahrain eGovernment Authority has reported that within the first few days of the service, its website already received up to three million hits and 200,000 unique visits.
The service was spearheaded by the Bahrain eGovernment Authority in 2009 to provide citizens a way to be quickly informed of their eligibility for financial support, to be able to register electronically, and to give additional information and to apply for online appeals if the available data do not qualify them for financial support.
Al Sawafiri told FutureGov Asia Pacific on Tuesday that the most significant impact of the project is that it permits the government to identify the citizens that could benefit from the financial support, as opposed to those who are not entitled,
This ensures that government funds are allocated to the right people.
“Another outcome is the ability to manage the overall payment cycle to ensure that the financial support is provided promptly,” added Al Sawafiri.
Since the service completely replaced the manual process of registration, the government of Bahrain was able to gain savings through the less need for manpower.
“The savings were primarily in the customer service and the administration staff units since they no longer use the manual method to handle the citizen’s registration processes and to finalise applications,” said the Project Manager.
The service has been among the most innovative initiatives of the Bahrain eGovernment Authority, because it allows for the integration of multiple government systems with different business owners thereby offering citizens a single window for their information.
Al Sawafiri said the feedback was exceedingly positive from both the Ministry of Social Development and citizens. This is due to the prompt, anonymous and convenient payment method provided by the service for citizens.
Al Sawafiri cited particular challenges the Bahrain eGovernment Authority faced in implementing the service, including:
“Firstly, on the technical side, the accuracy of the Government data was very high, yet the remaining percentage of inaccurate data resulted in an interruption in the process and delayed responses to citizens. This was primarily due to citizens changing their statuses and personal information without updating their records at a Government Office.”
“Secondly on the social aspect, the challenge was on defining and prioritising the eligible various social groups in the country and gathering all their relevant supporting data from the concerned Government Organizations.”
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Johanna Morden
Quelle/Source: futureGov, 12.04.2011
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
