Central Government, Policy

Dubai E-government sets US$276 million revenue target

By Alice Kok | 4 September 2008

Dubai’s integrated electronic payment system (ePay) has collected US$163 million so far this year and is expected to record revenues of US$276 million by the end of 2008.

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Created to facilitate and secure electronic payments, ePay acts as a payment gateway between Dubai residents and the government. Revenues collected go directly to various government departments without a need for physical interaction.

Salem Al Shair, eServices Director [pictured] of Dubai eGovernment (the agency behind ePay) said they have “already recorded a four-fold increase from last year’s revenue of US$68 million. The year before that it was only US$14.7 million. We’re looking at hitting a million Dirhams by the year-end.”

Beginning with 205 transactions amounting to US$33,000 in 2003, the number of transactions has gone up to 555,562 at the end of August this year. Interesting to note is the government’s view that no caps will be put on investments.

Al Shair states that “investment is a never-ending story and improvements will continue to happen. I don’t think what we have today will be good enough three years down the road, so we will have no cap on our spending.”

By the end of 2007, a methodological and statistical study showed the percentage of government services available for customers via non-conventional channels touched 91 per cent. A 90 per cent e-enablement is high in terms of international standards—100 per cent e-enablement is not possible as certain transactions require physical interactions.

“In birth certificates, you need to have a baby to be delivered; for a death certificate, you need a body that needs to be checked by the doctor,” Al Shair said.

Dubai.ae is the eGovernment’s official public portal, which integrates all the e-services of Dubai government departments. The top priority for the agency now is to improve the quality of services availed to customers. For one, the portal is due to be revamped as its content and design is decidedly “unsatisfactory”.

“Hopefully by the year-end we will re-launch it and it will have a better look and content,” he said. “The most important thing is that a person transacting must feel happy. Because if he does, he’ll do other services, talk about the services and others will be encouraged to interact with the government electronically. And if they have a bad experience, it will spread.”

Earlier this year, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ E-government Survey ranked the UAE in fifth position in terms of transactional services, just behind developed countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the United States.