Gulf eGovernment Committee holds its sixth meeting in Oman

The meeting was attended by the executives of GCC eGovernment programs, and headed by Abdul-Latif Alsarea, Deputy General Manager, Assistant Undersecretary for National Projects in Kuwait.

The attendees praised the hospitality and good organization of the Conference in Oman and congratulated the winning government authorities of the GCC eGovernment awards.

A variety of topics were discussed by the eGovernment chiefs resulting in several important recommendations, including welcoming the Ministerial Committee for Planning and Development's decision in its nineteenth meeting (June 2009 / Muscat) that the Committee become an independent commission within the framework of Secretariat's committees.

They were noted that the Ministerial Council directed that all the working committees in the framework of GCC are under the umbrella of the ministerial committee, the Commission should be composed of eGovernment authorities and the executives of eGovernment programs are the Preparatory Committee, due to the different eGovernment's references in each country, the Committee recommended to form a committee competent cabinet ministers in state's member who are concerned eGovernment, where the Ministers to be members in the Ministerial Committee.

Regards the First GCC eGovernment Conference recommendations and Gulf Award results, the committee's members praised for convening this conference in Oman, thank for the Oman's efforts made to success this conference and the award and appreciate their hospitality and good reception. The members were briefed on the Conference's recommendations, and agreed circulate it among all government agencies in each State to be implemented in a proper way.

The Committee expressed its satisfaction with the professionalism's level in implementing the award and the satisfaction with the fairness of the arbitration and the results that came out. It was agreed that each State to submit its suggestions to the presidency state to develop the award in its second cycle by the end of January 2010, and based on these suggestions, a working paper to be distributed to all members for discussion and approval at the next committee's meeting.

Regards the "date and place of the eGovernment's conference, exhibition and the award for the year 2010", Kuwait has welcomed to host the Second GCC eGovernment Conference and Exhibition the eGovernment award during 2010, and will provide States Members with the confirmed date for the conference.

The Committee also discussed the coordination between eGovernment authorities and programs in the States members that are participated in the specialized exhibitions held in the States Members and agreed to be committed to participate in the Annual GCC Conference for eGovernment that will be held in the presidency's State and gives each state the freedom to participate in other conferences and exhibitions organized by the States members according to their ability and capability to participate.

In the "issue of a joint declaration of the GCC States on the eGovernment program" item, as the Joint Declaration of the European Union over IT Committee, the committee discussed this issue and listened to the members views on the mechanism for providing a joint paper to the GCC countries on eGovernment program, the IT Authority of Sultanate Oman has took the initiative to prepare a draft paper to be submitted to the Committee in its next meeting for discussion and that the states members visit the European Union's (EU) headquarters after having a brief on the paper to have take advantage and earn experience from the EU and then will wrap up a final paper.

The committee's members suggested having a part time researcher from Academics in each other states members to lead the preparation of the working papers and researches related to eGovernment field.

On another topic, the Committee discussed the GCC's eGovenment projects and programs, the cooperation proposal and implementation between the States member in line with the electric grid project, the smart card project and other joint ventures.

It also discussed a proposal of cooperation and coordination in relation to procurement and software licenses negotiation for some companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and others.

It was agreed that the States members shall provide their proposals to on those topics the Secretariat for discussion at the next Committee's meeting that will be held during May or June 2010 in the General Secretariat headquarters in Riyadh and the date has been set in coordination with the Presidency's state.