Rating system launched for citizens to assess e-gov’t services

AMMAN — The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on Wednesday launched a new rating system for the government’s electronic services, which will allow citizens to evaluate the efficiency of e-services they receive. 

The rating system, dubbed “Your Satisfaction Matters”, is available at any government-run website that offers e-services. There, the citizen can submit a review of the service, with the option of adding a comment to elaborate on the answer, which Minister Muthana Gharaibeh said “will help improve e-services by filling the missing points”.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Gharaibeh said that the ministry’s commitment to introduce new e-services while improving the existing ones, with the aim of easing the process of issuing documents at official departments.

Since January, the total number of citizens who used the e-services rather than physically going to official departments, reached nearly 1,900,000, he said.

Since the beginning of the year, around 200,000 Jordanians applied for a no-criminal record certificate online, while around 230,000 requested one for property tax; around 1,000,000 residents checked for traffic tickets and 80,000 used the e-services for issuing a profession licence.

The rating engine, designed by a Jordanian company based in Dubai, will allow the introduction of more services deemed necessary to be accessible online, the minister said.

He said that the Department of Civil Status and Passport and the Driver and Motor Vehicle Licensing Department top the ministry’s focus during the next stage, “as a high percentage of citizens and residents expressed dissatisfaction towards the services and time spent at the agencies”. 

Work is also underway to improve the government’s services to authenticate the cyber security under the data protection law and safeguard the privacy of the citizens’ database online in cooperation with civil society organisations, he said.

By the end of the year, there will be 11 e-services accessible at the Ministry of Industry and Trade, two at the Ministry of Health, in addition to other services at the Greater Amman Municipality and the Ministry of Justice, Gharaibeh said.