King follows up on progress in public sector development

AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah on Wednesday said that those who hinder plans to improve the performance of the public sector and other economic programmes would be held accountable.

He told a meeting of officials tasked with implementing public sector development policies that the performance of each official would be evaluated in accordance with the size of achievement and in case of failure to accomplish the tasks vested in them. 

At the meeting, attended by Prime Minister Hani Mulki, the King urged full commitment by concerned parties to reform the civil service and remove any obstacles and overcome any challenges facing the development plans, describing the plan as an “irreversible strategic trajectory”, including the e-government scheme, to which “all ministries and insututions must commit”, a Royal Court statement said. 

His Majesty commended the prime minister for his intensive efforts to follow up on implementing the government plans and programmes.

For his part, Mulki said that a large package of governmental services would be computerised by June 1, 2018.

Mulki noted that the services include renewing licences of vocations, fines and real estate tax inquiry and payment, land registration, licensing vehicles that do not require a technical test, subscribing to and paying social security contributions, inquiry and payment for subscription to companies and issuing a clean criminal record certifications.

He added that health insurance, civil status and companies’ registration will also be computerised by the end of 2017, underlining the importance of partnership between the public and private sectors in this regard.

Minister of ICT and Minister of Public Sector Development Majd Shweikeh briefed the attendees on the e-government plans and their timeframe, as part of the broader plan to reform the public administration.

Shweikeh highlighted the recent amendments on the civil service system, which set benchmarks to evaluate the public sector employees’ performance.

Royal Court Chief Fayez Tarawneh and King Office Director Jafar Hassan attended the meeting.