Mohammed approves ‘A Day without Service Centres’ initiative
DUBAI 24 September 2017: Dubai has launched yet another initiative that aims to encourage customers to use smart channels to pay fees and complete transactions. Towards this end, its Service Centres will not receive customers for a day on 26 October.
Participating entities and names of service centres to be closed will be announced shortly.
However, transactions that require presence in person at the service centres will continue as usual.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has approved the initiative titled ‘A Day without Service Centres’.
Launched by Dubai Department of Finance (DoF), the initiative aims to encourage customers to turn to smart channels to obtain and complete government services and transactions. To this end, transactions requiring payments at customer service centres operating in Dubai will be stopped for one day.
Completing government transactions via smart channels helps save customers’ time, effort and money by avoiding use of private or public means of transport, and avoiding crowded roads and service centres, thus helping in preserving environmental resources, rationalizing fuel consumption, and reducing carbon emissions.
DoF has started coordinating with all government entities in Dubai to implement the initiative to close service centres across the emirate for a day on 26 October 2017.
“All government entities across Dubai Government have started cooperating to make the initiative a success,” said Abdulrahman Saleh Al Saleh, DoF Director General.
“Customer service centres will dedicate their efforts on Thursday, 26 October, to spread awareness among customers of the importance of transformation to smart channels to complete transactions, whether via smart apps or the web. On that day, all transactions requiring payments will be stopped for one day at the centres, but will remain available through all smart channels”, Al Saleh added.
Further, Jamal Hamed Al Mari, Executive Director of Central Accounts Sector at DoF, said that service transactions provided by many government entities in Dubai on Thursday, 26 October, will be available only via smart channels, including ‘Dubai Now’ app and other government apps available for smart phones. “There will also be the web-based channels via computers, and centres will resume normal operations after that date”, he said.
“The initiative ‘A Day without A Service Centre’ will be held annually and will see expansion. Participating government entities have expressed their happiness and excitement to take part in the initiative, and promised to work towards making it a success by encouraging customers to go for smart channels. We are working with various government entities to coordinate efforts to prepare all customer segments for digital transformation, and encourage them to use e-pay, via smart phones or computers”, Al Marri continued.
“I invite Dubai residents and visitors to use smart channels more often to complete government transactions, so it becomes part of the day-to-day cultural evolution, thus keeping up with the digital transformation drive in Dubai. We will announce the names of centres and services that will be suspended on 26 October, so that everybody will be ready to go for smart channels on that day”, Al Mari concluded.