Monday 01 / July / 2024
Muscat: The Sultanate of Oman has recorded qualitative leaps in government digital transformation under the National Programme for digital transformation during 2021-2023.
Dr. Ali Amer Al Shidhani, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said that the 'Transformation' programme relied on four issues: Excellent initiative in digital services, efficient execution of infrastructure projects with digital solutions, the national capabilities of empowerment and management, and the community participation and awareness in electronic services.
He explained that the reasons for remarkable digital transformation in the Sultanate of Oman are attributed to good governance, development of national policies and guidelines, existence of controls and standards specific to digital transformation, readiness of the digital environment for a number of government institutions targeted for digital transformation, leadership awareness in government institutions of the importance of digital transformation, and the supervision, support and guidance provided by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology to government institutions in fields such as planning, preparing and reviewing tenders, empowerment in implementing digital transformation projects, and financial support to accelerate project implementation.
He added that the reasons for the development are also attributed to assessing readiness and measuring the progress in digital transformation and the maturity of digital services in government institutions according to best practices, supporting and enabling institutions to develop digital services and digital solutions and proposing innovative solutions, in addition to the presence of digital transformation teams in government institutions concerned with implementing and accelerating digital transformation plans.
The Ministry supervises these institutions and provides support and advice to implement best practices, which helps accelerate the implementation of the programme.
Dr. Ali Amer Al Shidhani Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology, said that he sees the presence of a number of shared digital platforms and solutions and digital service systems that support reducing spending and increasing work efficiency and institutional planning that provide most of the basic services to the beneficiary in an integrated digital manner.
He explained that the existence of these digital systems is attributed to the work and efforts made by government institutions to achieve the requirements of digital transformation, develop their services, and their strong desire to keep pace with current technological developments in the world and serve beneficiaries.
He indicated that the digitisation of 1,545 services, including automatic licensing activities, had been completed during the period from January 2021 to December 2023, achieving a rate of 61 percent out of a total of 80 percent, which is the target indicator for the digitisation of basic government services by the end of the year 2025 and by 2023 only 207 were digitised.
He indicated that, believing in the importance of documenting and simplifying work procedures, improving their operations and raising the efficiency of services before starting the stage of automation or digitising services, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology has taken two approaches to simplification; some government institutions have simplified their procedures separately through consulting studies.
The Ministry has also simplified government services procedures centrally through the Manjam initiative to simplify procedures and engineer government services processes, which is concerned with reviewing and simplifying service procedures in accordance with best practices and applying standards related to improving the quality of services.
He said that the Manjam Laboratories for Simplifying Government Procedures focus on improving the procedures of government services provided to beneficiaries by applying the user journey methodology, which represents the complete experience that the beneficiary goes through to obtain the final output of the product or service, passing through several stages that differ according to the different segment of beneficiaries and their needs to facilitate access to services.
The laboratories are organized in a centralised and joint manner in accordance with the approach of common interests and integration of government work, as they work to enable government institutions to review and simplify the procedures of basic services and improve, redesign and organize their operations from beginning to end without regard to the entity providing the service, especially those classified under the item of shared services to ensure achieving a radical improvement in time, cost, quality and efficiency.
He stressed that the results are very promising, as the procedures of 2,199 services were simplified during the period from 2021-2023 out of a total of 2,869 services targeted to be simplified by the end of 2025, including 578 services whose procedures were simplified during the past year 2023. He indicated that 41 percent of these procedures were simplified in Manjam laboratories to simplify government procedures.
Regarding the role of simplifying procedures in attracting investments, he explained that one of the goals of Manjam Laboratories is to simplify government procedures, enhance the investor’s experience from visiting the Sultanate via instant electronic visas, all the way to obtaining all required licenses digitally and from anywhere in the world in in addition to obtaining work permits via electronic platforms.
He said that the investor can digitally view the projects and investment opportunities available in the Sultanate of Oman without the need to attend in person. The digital platform of the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones also provides a distinctive digital experience for investors, including reviewing opportunities, choosing sites for investment, submitting and approving applications, and a wide range of incentives and features.
he added that the unified national portal for electronic services, upon completion, will contribute to giving a new impetus to this trend by providing all government services under one advanced umbrella.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology stressed that these measures and many others have had a positive impact on the attracting foreign investments to Oman.
