IBM to help the emirate of Ajman with major e-Government transformation in the Middle East

Driven by the vision of H.H, Sheikh Humaid Bin Rashid Al-Nuaimi Supreme council member and Ruler of Ajman, the project will see IBM providing consulting and strategic planning services and determining both the processes and the technology requirements for Ajman's e-Government implementations.

Working closely with the government's IT team, IBM Global Services (IGS) will develop a common e-government blueprint aiming to select the systems needed to integrate and overlook government departments, including the Ruler's Court, Ajman Municipality, Ajman Police, Ajman Free Zone Authority, Ajman Immigration and Neutralisation, Ajman Land and Properties, Ajman Civil Defence and the Ajman Chamber of Commerce.

"We will be working closely with IBM to evaluate the readiness of our various government departments for the introduction and implementation of e-Government services, including human resources aspects, processes and the technologies that will be brought to bare," said H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Humaid Al-Nuaimi, Ajman Ruler's Representative of Financial and Administration Affairs. "IBM has already demonstrated strong e-government capabilities, with its experience in bringing global innovative e-government solutions to the Middle East, which is why we believe their role in this initiative will be critical to our success."

The project aims to bring fundamental changes to the way the government deals with citizens and business organisations in the Emirate, through easy communication, efficient processes and fast transactions. These changes will be brought about by a sophisticated infrastructure that will support a number of solutions and services that the government will provide across several departments. In establishing this, the IBM Global Services team will be responsible for prioritising the various initiatives, such as the identification of specific target performance measures for the successful implementation of the project. In addition IBM will evaluate the technical infrastructure requirements and define the essential policies and procedures necessary to support the e-government initiative. Finally, IBM will develop a comprehensive blueprint to allow the Ajman government monitoring the successful implementation of the project.

"IBM has been involved in initiatives across the region, working with the governments of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan among others to create effective business, process and technology platforms that drive towards truly empowering e-government capabilities," said Takreem E-Tohamy, general manager, IBM Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan. "Not only will this e-government initiative have an enormous impact on facilitating access to government services, it will also transform the working environment for government staff at all levels. We believe this is a major milestone for the Emirate's economic growth and development and we are very pleased to be working so closely with them."

Following the project initiation and system selectionphase, the Ajman government will implement a number of critical systems using the technical guidelines set by IBM, including an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with a customer relationship management functionality, a document management system, a government portal with 20 on-line electronics services and a payment gateway and a geographical information system. All these systems will be supported through an advanced infrastructure that will be provided through a shared service data centre set up by the Ajman government.