DOHA: The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning will soon set up self-service kiosks at shopping complexes and ministries to provide electronic services to its customers, a senior official has disclosed.
The initiative is part of an ambitious project to make the ministry paperless by the end of next year, according to Khalaf Al Anzi, Director, Information Systems Department.
On the sidelines of an open meeting with officials yesterday, he told the media that the ministry will introduce electronic payment system for services in three months.
Currently it provides e-Services for complaints and inquiry, payment of fines for violations, tender and auctions, request for pest control, sewage vehicles and trimming of trees, requests related to abandoned vehicles and drainage issues, recruitment, requests for removal of rain water and eviction of labour accommodations in residential areas, among others.
Al Anzi said preparations are in the final phase for issuing tenders for installing kiosks, which will be customer-friendly and even people with disabilities will be able to use them.
He said e-Services being provided have reduced the number of visitors to the ministry by 40 percent. By going paperless, the ministry will save huge amount of money, time and efforts. For instance, transferring paper fax to digital fax will cut costs by about QR1.3m per year.
Al Anzi said through the electronic system, the ministry will be able to assess the performance of all eight municipalities in a better and faster manner.
The online system will include a special option for directors to monitor the performance of every municipality based on the number of services provided on daily and monthly basis.
The municipalities will be ranked based on assessment. A performance score will be given to every service based on the number of applications on which actions were taken.
Any service that gets a performance score below 95 percent will be put on the red list, said Al Anzi.
A recently added e-Service — Tawkeed — allows the ministry to issue original building certificates, building licences and salary statements through a mobile application.
The ministry also launched a new electronic service that helps locate homes and buildings in each municipality.
Al Anzi said the ministry has finished a project — smart offices — to allow officials to communicate and deal with staff and other officials through a mobile application.THE PENINSULA
