AlQaed: iGA continues implementing projects that achieve Bahrain’s Fiscal Balance Program and Vision 2030

Manama, Feb.2 (BNA): Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) Chief Executive Mr. Mohamed Ali AlQaed announced a series of key projects achieved in the past year (2018), which had mainly and effectively contributed in implementing the Fiscal Balance Program amongst government’s action plans. Mr. AlQaed stressed that the Authority pays great attention to implement government directives under the supervision and leadership of Government Executive Committee chaired by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad AlKhalifa - the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister – along with directives of the Supreme Committee for Information & Communication Technology (SCICT) - chaired by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak AlKhalifa, Deputy Prime Minister – as well as support of Lieutenant-General His Excellency Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla AlKhalifa – Minister of Interior – in raising the efficiency of public services, delivering them with the highest quality standards, speed and accuracy – meeting needs of individuals and entities as well as raising the level of customer satisfaction on delivered services. AlQaed highlighted that the Authority was able to implement a series of initiatives and projects – throughout 2018 – that contributed in reducing general expenditures without effecting efficiency of service provided or customer satisfaction levels. Such initiatives were a result of efforts exerted by the IT Cost Reduction Team working on various sectors in eTransformation, re-engineering procedures and change management of government services. In addition to making data accessible through several specialized surveys; support of IT infrastructure and cyber-security, management of census as well as provision of more identity card features. Some of the main successful milestones of 2018 include achieving more than 1.3 million government transactions via eGovernment channels to make a growth of 32% in comparison to last year together with achieving an increase in value of online payments by 62% - amounting to BD120 Million. Such increase attributes to the current development of the infrastructure, provision of more than 370 government eServices that meet citizens’ needs, as well as enhance their trust and user-experience. In addition to initiatives of change management and procedures re-engineering supervised by the Government Executive Committee. More than 40 eServices were developed, along with new mobile apps which also witnessed a growth in utilization by 22% in 2018. Some of the key new services include the comprehensive Government Directory app, development of the Benayat project, Private Notary services, Soil Maps project, Evaluation of Government Service Centers system, Integrated Management System of Elderly Care, in addition to developing a bundle of other vital eServices. The Information & eGovernment Authority also assisted in drafting the Voluntary National Review Report on SDGs with the National Information Committee chaired by the Minister of Cabinet Affairs H.E. Mr. Mohammed bin Ibrahim AlMutawa. The Authority’s role included identifying entities of direct relevance to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and collecting necessary related information and data. The National Health Survey project was conducted during 2018, which meets massive demand on the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 in enhancing the health information system and determining Kingdom’s health priorities by providing comprehensive information of population’s health status as well as utilizing such data to prepare suitable strategic plans. With the aim of assisting decision and policy makers in the Kingdom, the Labor Force Survey 2018 was implemented to determine the priorities of the upcoming strategic plans in all economic sectors. Results of both surveys will be announced during this year. It is also worth noting that during 2018, the Authority published periodic reports in important fields including the Tourism, Foreign Investment, Consumer Price Index, National Accounts, Foreign Trade along with others in collaboration with concerned entities. The year 2018 also witnessed the issuance of the entirely new, revamped identity card in terms of technical and design to keep abreast with the latest internationally adopted standards in the field of quality, security, features and delivered services. The card also encompassed the strongest security and technical features making it difficult to tamper or damage the content of the electronic chip in addition to the ability to add more electronic services and applications in the future. Today, most identity card services are provided electronically via the national portal Bahrain.bh and last year, more than 110,000 identity card transactions were completed online. In light of implementing the Cloud First Policy and migration of processes as well as systems of public entities and infrastructure to the smart device platform; 90% of the national portal (Bahrain.bh) infrastructure components were migrated to the Amazon Web Services’ Cloud. This supported the Authority to develop a set of advanced systems that serve important sectors such as Education, Health, Finance and others while utilizing highly efficient sources – resulting in the reduction of using foreign expertise. Additionally, iGA was able to migrate 47 government systems to the national Cloud, and more than 1,500 operational infrastructures including processing, storage spaces and database in the public sector. As a result of applying the policy, expenditures reduced by 60% to 90% from 2016 to 2018. In 2018, the Authority was able to address and handle more than 2 million malicious programs. More than 30,000 unknown viruses of traditional protection systems were addressed, and over 62 million malicious emails were blocked.