Oman Signs E-Gov't Services Portal Project Agreement

MUSCAT, July 5 Asia Pulse - Mohammed bin Nassir al-Khusaibi, secretary-general of the National Economy Ministry, Chairman of Information Technology Authority (ITA) signed here today an agreement to award the contract of E-government services portal project to the GBM local company and NCS Company of Singapore.

In a statement to reporters, al-Khusaibi said that e-government services portal was very crucial for the provision of government services online. "The use of portal will increase the use of the e-services, as they are easy to use," he said.

He said, by launching the e-government portal, the various categories of society will be able to obtain the e-government services via one portal.

The portal, which will be linked with the e-payment gateway, will facilitate making payment through a single unified portal. It will include the e-government services on its time of launch during the next period, and will be mainly used to authenticate, authorize, personalize, and redirect service requests to backend systems, he added.

He said that the portal will be implemented through a number of phases mapping the developments in the overall e-government initiative. The portal will include a comprehensive searchable information guide to government services, as well as, a simplified delivery model based on a life event model. The Portal is designed to be highly secure enabling a single and a strong identity authentication process.

On his turn, Dr. Salim bin Sultan al-Ruzaiqi, ITA CEO said a number of supporting components and services will be implemented with E-government services portal that will enable a smoother and more comprehensive online service delivery, like the e-Forms that enables downloading, as well as online filling of government service application forms. This service will enable downloading application forms, filling and submitting these forms on government counters for processing.

As for the service directory, Dr. al-Ruzaiqi said that the directory is a support service providing a centralized directory of users registered on the Portal, as well as government employees. This directory will be a government wide central repository of users credentials and authorizations used by the portal, as well as government systems to authenticate users and determine basic parameters and rights. The delivery of services will be done through service delivery framework which is a set of frameworks and application components that define how other portals in the government interact with E-government services Portal for the delivery of government services. This framework will also provide the building blocks for interfacing government portals together to provide a unique and unified view of the government electronic services through a common look and feel, he added.

As for the integration components, al-Ruzaiqi said These components enable integrating various separate government applications required for processing online government service requested by citizens and residents.

The Portal will provide a number of quick win services that shall be an integral part of the portal. A number of public services have already been identified and will be launched electronically today. The E-government public service portal will be linked to the e-payment portal, the first stage of which already started. It is expected that the e-government Portal project will take nine months to completion.

(ONA)