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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 CentralStatistics 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 aswell. 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 countrys 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 apure 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.

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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 Bahrainiscan 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.

(1) http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/prod_101002.html

(2) http://www.immigration.gov.bh/

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