E-services to become mandatory at Amman municipality by 2018

JORDAN

AMMAN — Use of the e-services provided by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) will be obligatory by 2018, officials said, noting that facilitating its use for all citizens is under way through expanding electronic stations all over Amman.

Renewal of occupational licences and payment of traffic tickets and property tax are the main services GAM will be dealing solely through its e-system, Sultan Kharabsheh, executive director of GAM’s ICT Department, told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

As part of the Electronic Transformation project 2017-2020, that aims to automate governmental services, GAM last month launched nine stations equipped with Internet and computers, where facilitators and bank officers will be providing assistance and teaching citizens how to use the e-services, he added.

So far, the stations have served over 5,000 people, with officers training people on how to use e-services and Central Bank officers helping them to open bank accounts for those who require one. This should ease the use of current and future e-payments, Kharabsheh said.

GAM launched 10 e-services, including municipal services such as requesting street lightning, trimming trees and garbage containers, in addition to an e-complaints system. Seven more services will be automated by the end of 2017, he noted.

“This project aims at saving time, effort and money and restoring people’s confidence in the governmental process, away from wasta [using personal connections to obtain privileges], which should ensure that all people get served equally through the e-system,” Kharabsheh said.

E-stations are scheduled to cover all areas of Amman, including malls and post offices, which will include all e-government processes, not only GAM’s.

The official said that the requirements and measures of 41 services provided by GAM will be restudied to ease the processes in order to be automated by the end of 2018

Over 100,000 people inside and outside Jordan — expatriates — have used GAM’s e-services, he said, stressing that the execution of the mandatory property tax payment, imposed at the beginning of each year, will increase the use of the stations and system by January 2018.