Contract signed to set up Empost Centre at Dubai Municipality

The move is aimed at easing procedures, enhancing services and reducing the pressure and burden of the customers to visit the Municipality again for collecting the finished transactions.

Establishment of the Empost Centre at the Municipality will ensure that the accomplished transactions will reach the customers directly and fast, said Khalid Ali Bin Zayed, Director of the Department of Municipality Centres.

He said that all preparations for active co-ordination have been completed between the Department of Municipality Centres and Empost, the department of Emirates Post that offers the service of sending documents and transactions by speed post.

Bin Zayed said the agreement signed between the Municipality and Empost comes as part of the joint co-operation for boosting the performance of the employees, enhancing the work, exchange of expertise and utilizing the prospects available with other establishments in order to benefit from them for developing the performance standards.

"Practically, we have started sending our completed transactions through Empost from 17th May 2005 onwards. These transactions include the transactions of qualification offices of consultants and contractors such as technical reports, test results of technical staff of companies, renewal of records of consultancy offices and contracting companies, modifications of the status of office, plan permits of the Executive Planning Section and Tawasol cards of PROs and representatives of establishments and companies that deal with the Municipality," he said. Bin Zayed added that in the coming days the building plans returned to the consultancy offices will also be sent by Empost.

He said that since the starting of the project in May last year 2,759 transactions have been sent to the customers through Empost, of them, 2,213 were sent to the qualification offices of consultants and contractors, 216 were transactions of plan permits, and 330 were Tawasol cards of PROs and representatives of establishments and companies that deal with the Municipality.

"We will study the possibility of including the transactions of other organizational units in the Municipality also in the project," said Bin Zayed.

The agreement between the Municipality and Empost was signed by Ibrahim Yaqoub, Director of Contracts and Purchasing Department in the Municipality and Sultan Al Midfa , Director General of Empost in the presence of Khalid Ali Bin Zayed, Director of the Department of Municipality Centres, Essa Darwish, Head of Umm Suqeim Centre of Municipality, Abdullah Al Juwaid, Assistant Director General of Empost, S P Nair, Director, Operations, Empost, Hunaidah Abdullah, Director, Marketing and Sales, Empost, and Abdul Aziz Al Mazam, Director, Sales, Empost.

"Currently we are having strategic partnerships with several government departments such as the Naturalization and Emigration, Ministry of Health, Lands Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and in this context this new agreement with Dubai Municipality is focusing attention on the efforts we are exerting to provide quality service adhering to the best accepted standards adopted by governmental departments in the UAE," said Sultan Al Midfa.

"We are quite confident that our service will contribute immensely in reducing the number of visits by the customers to the Municipality and save their time and also enhance the effectiveness of the work process at Dubai Municipality," he said.

According to the agreement Empost will accept all transactions of the Municipality through the Empost representative available at the Municipality building from the beginning of the working hours of the Municipality and during extended duty hours if need arises. Empost will deliver the transactions to the concerned addressees within 24 hours of receiving them.

It will also hand over all transactions that were not received by the concerned parties back to the Municipality in 48 hours time along with an explanation of the reasons for the non-receipt of the items. The Municipality will provide an automated system for the confirmation of delivering, receiving and returning of the transactions between both the sides.

Also according to the contract, Empost will develop special software to register and document the transactions received from or returned by the concerned parties with a facility to prepare a list of them so that it can be sent to the Municipality as and when need arises.

Also according to the contract, Empost will provide an employee at the Municipality to sell envelops and coupons, and take the responsibility of ensuring the safety of all the transactions received by it and protect them from any damages. In case of any damages or loss of documents, Empost shall bear the charges for accomplishing the transactions again and send it free of cost.