Bahrain E-Government
Overview: The government of Bahrain is the
largest contributor and direct developer of the Electronic Government sector.
In the last couple of years, the government has realized the potential of
moving from a paper to paperless platform and one such example of an E-Government
portal is the implementation of the E-Voters system online.
The Bahraini Government is very keen on developing a very strong Internet Based E-Government and a number of successful steps have already been taking. Bahrain has become the very first country in the Middle East to introduce the first ever E-Voters concept. The Central Statistics Organization or CSO, based out of Bahrain has developed this totally new concept of “E-Referendum to ensure that the voting process would be pure of any sort of statistical or numerical mistakes. This E-Voters system(2) was put into operation by the Bahraini government on 14th and 15th February, 2001 when Bahrain had their first ever national referendums.
This sophisticated software system was a very big success by the Bahraini
government because it ensures that the nationals would simply be able to go
to the Internet and cast their votes, minimizing time and resources as well.
The government of Bahrain, due to the success of this type of online transaction
system has paced itself in the technology race through the entire region in
terms of the successful adoption of E-government needs.
The Bahraini government is also in the process of signing long term ventures
with Cisco Systems of the United States for the purposes of providing next-generation
broadband for the needs of the government such as fast processing of online
transactions (such as processing applications, doing back ground checks and
so forth) and also for the local businesses.
The government is working closely with the local telecommunications provider,
Batelco to spread the broadband network which exists on a small scale in Manama
and to encompass the country’s Government Data Network (GDN) and commercial
business connectivity in Manama using broadband Metro Ethernet Solutions from
Cisco Systems(1).
The development of the broadband system would also be very crucial because
it would play a key role in the integration of various pertinent governmental
branches as it would allow video conferencing, video on demand, e-Learning
and also IP telephony in the very near future. From a pure governmental perspective,
this new E-government initiative will allow the ministries to transfer and
exchange government data, applications and information as part of Bahrain's
fast developing e-Government drive.
From the Government to Business perspective (G2B), the Bank of Bahrain &
Kuwait, and they implemented an online Transaction with the Ministry of Finance
to pay their Regulation fee directly over the Internet. This was the first
of its kind online transactions between the Bahraini government and the bank
of Bahrain & Kuwait.
A second example for the e-government would be (G2C) where Bahraini’s can
renew passports on line with the department of immigration and passports.
The future of e-government in Bahrain is starting and going to follow many
other departments and services offered to the citizens. An example, would
be the renewal of driving license with the department of traffic online.