Government Services Provided Online - Report Example

?INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 16 December Introduction Governments all over the world are taking up information technology in providing services to their citizens. These services are not limited to health and financial services. The main driver to taking up this as a mode of communication to the citizen is the existence of cheap and fast internet connection almost in every homestead. The internet is also being seen as a quick and free media of communication. This is because people have established trust on services provided over the internet. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia allowed internet connection in the 1990’s after a long deliberation of the effect that it would have on its citizen (Ghafour , 2006). The internet connection was allowed with some censuring to eradicate materials that were against the culture of the people. This would make sure internet connection was used only for positive purposes. The internet led to adoption of e-government. This service would allow citizens receive most government services online without travelling to government offices. Internet connection allows service access by even those citizens who are outside the physical boundaries of the Kingdom.   Government services provided online E-Health system This is an online electronic health system. It was launched after a series of tests to help in running of health services in the kingdom.  The system offers service of data collection and storage on patients. Hospitals are using it to manage both out patients and in patients. Clinics have been provided with access to the system to enable them in managing their resources.  Resources managed are laboratories equipment, medicine available in the pharmacy and staffing levels in the different clinics. The ability of the system to store information on patients, enable care taker access patients information in one file and automatically. The system eliminates the manual filing system that was used in storing information in hospitals. The multi user ability, embedded in the system assists in the elimination of duplication of patient details. This is enabled by ability of multiple health units accessing the patient data from a central storage unit online. The advantages derived from using this web base system is allowing for timely access to data stored about patients. Analysis on common diseases can also be done. This only requires integrating the correct tools of data mining on the data store created to generate a report. The reports can be used by government institutions in making proactive decisions of something that might happen in the future. The online system also enables health centres share information easily because of the uniform working platform provided. Data mining in the data centres can be done to give government with statistics to make decisions in the health centres. These statistics may include death rate and diseases causing deaths in the kingdom. Adoption of the e-health system has been seen as an advantage to the government in the health services provision. This is leading to need of connecting more and more health units to the system to improve on service delivery (Alcantara, 2008). Electronic immigration Services This is an online portal that enables Saudi Arabia nationals and expatriates receive immigration services through an online. The services are provided by the ministry of interior of Saudi charged with responsibility of offering and cancelling visas. The services provided online include visa application, resident permit application and checking on the validity of one’s public health insurance. Prior registration is needed for users to use these services. A need for registration is to hold Saudi national identification number. The person visits the portal and feels this number for verification purposes. Verification will make sure that the number is genuine, and the holder has the right to use the portal. After verification, the portal has an automatic ability to generate a unique username and password. Users of this portal are divided to different access levels. This means some users can use more services than others. Users who would like to receive all the services provided online are supposed to physically visit the ministries offices for further verification of their details. The two phases of verification ensures security and eliminates impersonation. Impersonation exists where people pretend to be genuine holders of certain access rights. The online provision of services by the ministry of interior saves citizens a lot of money.  Money is saved through elimination of the cost of transport and time that spent on travelling to the ministry offices. The government spending is also reduced by eliminating the need of employing workers to serve all those citizens who would be visiting the offices for different services (Specialist, 2011). Online visa and passport checking Fraudsters all over the world, lie to people on employment opportunities available in the kingdom of Saudi. They do this by offering unknowing people fake visa for entry in Saudi. These scams led to the government establishing an online database of all genuine visas issued worldwide by Saudi embassies. People do not travel to the embassies to check on the validity of their visas, but need just to click on a uniform resource locator to view all those details. Once people are on this page, they just need to fill details of their visa number and identification number of sponsors. Reply messages are generated on the basis of validity of the Visa. The kingdom has also enrolled online visa application in some countries like the United States America. The online application requires people to send their passport through email to their home embassies. Credit card payment or online payment is accepted during this time. . Qualification for online visa application requires one’s passport to be six months valide before the intended data of travelling to the Kingdom. During payment, people have to include the shipping cost on the payment. The online provision of visa services tries to cut the handles people have to overcome before visiting the Kingdom. It also eliminates the need of queuing during visa application. This is seen as a way of utilizing information technology to improve on the accessibility to the kingdom by visitors.   Online provision of statistics Citizens of a country are entitled to information about performance of their government. Governments in some countries give this information in the form of books which are not accessible to different local citizens. The government of Saudi Arabia is divided into different ministries, which are free to set up their own portals. The ministry of health portal is one such portal. The portal is known to give statistics on health care. Some of the statistics provided are the number of hospitals available, beds available in hospitals, doctors employed, pharmacists employed, and nurses employed. Publication of these statistics is done online for the public to use freely without any restriction. Citizens can also access information about upcoming vaccines or seminars organized by the ministry through these sites. Provision of online statistics on trade helps business men within and without the kingdom makes timely decisions on investment opportunities.  The central bank posts the trading rates of the Riyadh online after every fifteen minutes which is a leading trading currency in the Kingdom. Living cost index of the Kingdom population is provided on an annual basis. The index is also divided on cities basis to for comparison purposes by the citizens of the different cities. The documents containing the index are provided in downloadable from online. Data on prices on the different commodities is provided online by the government. The pricing data will help consumers make timely decisions on what to spend on or not. The Kingdom of Saudi has a central portal that provides services to the citizens and other government agencies. The portal has a polling part to allow citizens give their opinion on service on service delivery. The portal provides information on current government services also acts as a linkage to other government agencies. Statistics on the portal shows the several visitors on the site, and the average number of minutes a visitor remains on the site (Rajash, 2008). These statistical data is used by the different information provider on the content provided on the portal. The polling conducted on the portal is also free from biases by government workers because of the automation of the process. Portal improvement is done without any management change. Provision of statistics by all government ministries online is one aim of ensuring openness in running government affairs. The information will reach many people because of the availability of internet access in almost every corner of the kingdom (Ahmed, 2006).   Online complainant and help desk Citizens are sometime dissatisfied with the services provided by the government agencies. To ensure service delivery public offices have established physical complainant desks. These desks are not utilized because of the fear of victimisation of people reporting these crimes. To eradicate the feeling of victimisation on citizens online help desks are established. People feel no one is watching them while working on the internet. When these people send emails to government offices about unsatisfactory services, they are sure no one will come after them.   The online complainant desks work by each ministry having an email address where people can send their complainants. People are also asked to state whether they would need any reply by leaving their contact as part of the message. The emails have designated people who will read them and make an analysis of complains. Utilization of the online help desks will mostly matter on the good will of the participants. The receiver might decide to discard all messages sent without acting on the m. The senders might move ahead and use the service to spam the ministry with unnecessary emails. Technology is adopted to filter spam emails, which cannot be done with a hundred percent finality. The online help desks and complainants’ desks improve on service delivery. They also cut on cost of establishing a physical help desk that would need a lot of workers around the offices (Jeong, 2007).  Publications of laws and acts The government and local authorities  come up with the different laws that govern the state. These laws can relate to civil or property law. The government of has established a website by the name legislation Saudi Arabia (lexadin). This website has listed all the rules dividing them by types either as constitutional law or public law. Publication of laws of a country online, enables visitors have a clear view of dos, and don’ts within Saudi Arabia. These laws are also open to criticism from the public because of the easiness in access. Laws which are published, and then written in some archived document might be having errors or unfriendly sections.   Timely communication of new legislation is also provided because of the easiness that exists in updating the website. The website can also be linked by different nongovernmental organisations that are carrying sensitization activities on the countries laws. These cut the need of these organisations rewriting the same laws on their website. Information technology at this place has been used as a tool of disseminating government information to the public (Koh , 2003). Introduction of a centralized bill payment system The Saudi government allowed payments of bills through banks in the 80’s. These would allow different people pay their utility bills through banks. In the 90’s bills payable increased largely making banks refuse to take payment from customers. Banks claimed that, they did not get income from these services and they took their workforce time. Banks came with a temporary solution; they introduced an electronic system that would connect to utility providers. This system proofed useless because banks resisted registering new clients into the system. The denial in registration denied different people from paying their utility bills. The government developed an online solution known as SADAD payment solution. This solution would connect all the banks and allow different clients register to pay their bills. The 21st century has seen an increase in number of bills paid in Saudi rising from 70 million in 2000 to 250 million in 2007. This increase has been brought about by the increase in services provided in the telecom industry. The SADAD system provides a centralized infrastructure and open access to any bank for bill payment. This system also ensured availability making clients have access to it wherever need arise. This system will cut the time taken by a client to pay their bills because of the automation factor in it. The ability of the system to integrate bills from different utility company would allow a client pay all the utility bills from one bank. This is because the bank will have access of all this bills from one access point. Promotion of Democracy Democracy is a rule of the people and the people. Different scholars try to measure democracy from a different perspective. One of the perspectives is where citizens of a country are allowed to air their views without any interference from the ruling council. Governments on the other side’s claims that human rights are to be enjoyed with certain limitations put on them. These limitations may include on what the media can air about and what should be viewed online by citizens of a country. The Saudi government has ensured democracy by giving information about the government structure to its citizens. Participatory democracy is also ensured but with control to prevent people airing inflammatory messages. The control is ensured by asking people who own online blogs to get licenses. These licenses are seen by many people as a way to control freedom of speech but governments must practice control on the subjects.  The openness of how government activities are run is a driving factor to democracy. The Saudi government ensures that statistics, and every government information are available to the public online. Subjects might view access to information with control as dictatorship but countries all over the world are trying to censor what is viewed over the internet indirectly. This is done by the governments monitoring sites visited by citizens and activities carried on those sites without the knowledge of the censored subjects(Cordella, 2007). Adoption of online learning Long time ago people who were working had to leave their jobs and get back to classes. This was long before e-learning was taken up in the kingdom as a form of learning. Online e-learning involves people registering for courses online with accredited university. People schedule their classes in a way that will fit into their working schedule. One of the benefits that come from online learning is cost reduction. People are not required to pay fare to attend physical classes as was before. Having internet connection in the house, a password and a username is enough for one to attend a class. Instructors will send materials to student at their own time without minding if they are online. Once the student logins in the portal, they will go ahead and download the materials sent by their instructors. E-learning eradicates overcrowding in learning institutions. A single instructor can teach thousands of online students at once which would not be possible with them visiting the university. This is a cost benefit to the state by eliminating the need of erecting tall buildings in universities. The government is also saved the cost of hiring tutors who will teach the different students attending classes within the university premises. E-learning is disadvantageous in that it requires a high initial cost for start-up. This first cost is required to set up the required infrastructure in learning institutions. This method also requires internet connections to the different homesteads of people who are taking part in this education system. The lack of personal interaction between students and their tutors may lead to loss of morale by the students. These students might even stop attending the online learning lessons after some time. The online system does not give immediate answering of student’s question. This carrying over of students question might lead to loss of concentration. Conclusion E-government as a means of delivering government services is seriously being taken in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This has led to increased satisfaction of citizens because of quality services delivered to them. Quality of services delivered online depends mostly on the service provider ethical standing (Satyanarayana, 2004). The governmental is seen as one of the trusted provider because of its credibility. Access to online services depends on the ability of the citizens to read and use computers. Citizens who are computer illiterate might not get the benefits accrued by the government providing its services online. The Saudi government is working on a strategy where almost every government service delivery will be carried online.    Information system strategy of Mobility Company Mobility is one of the leading telecommunication companies in Saudi Arabia. The company provides both data and voice communication services. This makes the company, rank among the highest companies that consume information technology services. The company has a vision statement that emphasizes in the continuous innovating in the communication industry (Kit, 2007). Future Information Technology environment Health facility The company is strategising on launching mobility baby in corporation with other industries .The service will enable people share medical images all on their phone. The service is only available in Saudi Arabia but the company has a vision of expanding the service in more countries. The strategy is to improve the quality of life and service delivery in the health sector. The health sector service delivery improves by getting multiple opinions from different specialist on a certain image. Roll out of the long-term evolved infrastructure (LTE) The company has awarded contracts to different companies for the completion of its long-term evolved infrastructure. These will involve upgrading the different infrastructures in more than 30 cities. These will involve upgrading of the WiMax infrastructure widely used in different cities. The infrastructure development will place the company in a place to give data communications at a minimum speed of 100 megabits. The speed will allow the company serves its growing clientele base without any congestion in the broadband. The field test for the roll out of LTE has already been conducted awaiting implementation of the service. Implementation of the changes will come with a rise in the company’s market share in the Middle East. The infrastructure will reduce congestion in the network and also allow use of the latest technology in the mobile telephony business. Fibre internet infrastructure The growing need of fast internet connection is a leading cause in adopting fibre optic cable internet connection. The company has a strategy of teaming up with other seven telecommunication companies in the construction of the Middle East fibre optic connection cable. The cable will lower the cost of data communication in line with the mission of the company to give cheap services to its clients. The cable will cover a distance of 7,750 kilometres and offer internet connection to more than 2 billion people. These infrastructures development will help the company move its customers to the fourth generation network. The fourth generation network will offer quick, reliable internet connection. The connection is supposed to offer redundancy reducing the downtime of mobile facilities. Adoption of the Android platform Adoption of the Android platform The changing market trend in the smart phone industry is a leading cause in the need of adoption of the android platform. This platform will enable the different subscribers owning android phones get customized services from the company. The company will set up an online android market for its subscribers. The subscribers can download android application for a fee or free. Massive campaign has been launched to make sure that more people buy android phones. The campaign is done in partnership with Google who are the main producer of cheap android enabled devices. Consumers with these devices use most of the services provided by the company. Some of the services consumed using these devices are internet connection, data communication and voice communication. The platform will open new market avenue for the company such providing navigation software to clients. The navigation will utilize towers owned by the company to locate callers and also find your way. References Ahmed, M., 2006. E-Initiatives in Saudi Arabia: An Opportunity of Empowerment for The Kingdom. [Online] Available at :< -http://www.cio-arabia.com/> [Accessed 13 December 2011]. Cordella, A.,2007, E-government: towards the e-bureaucratic form. Journal of Information Technology, 22(3),p 265–274. Alcantara, 2008. E -health system for Saudi Arabia. [online] Available at: [Accessed 13 December 2011]. Ghafour, P.K., 2006. King Allocates SR3bn for e-Government Program. Arab News, 32(4), p1. Jeong, C. H., 2007. Principles of Public Administration: an introduction. Kuala Lumpur: Karisma Publications Koh, C.E., 2003. The Three-Ring Model and Development of an Instrument for Measuring Dimensions of E-Government Functions. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 33(3), pp.34-9. Kit, P., 2007. Towards Formulating Strategy and Leveraging Performance: a strategic information systems planning approach. International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 28(4), p. 128-139. Rajash, 2008. Enabling Democracy? E-Government, Inclusion and Citizenship. Hague: The Hague University Satyanarayana, J., 2004. E-Government: The Science of the Possible. New York: Prentice Hall. Specialist, 2011. Saudi Arabia: Curiosity-Government Launches Website for Electronic Immigration Services. [Online] Available at: [Accessed 13 December 2011].       Read More