Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will jointly set up a ‘comprehensive’ electronic system to provide municipal information and services.

The ministers of both Ministries have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) authorising the extension of Yesser, the country’s e-government programme, to include MOMRA.

Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs Prince Mansour bin Miteb and Minister of Communications & Information Technology Muhammad Jameel Mulla on Saturday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to set up a comprehensive e-system that will provide municipal services and information. The MoU authorizes the e-Government program Yesser to extend all efforts to the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA) in this project.

“This will be a major step forward in implementing this e-Government initiative in Saudi Arabia and for the adoption of the infrastructure and the regulatory provisions in conformity with the e-Government Action Plan”, said Jameel Mulla, Minister for Communications and Information Technologies. He pointed out that Yesser, within the framework of the MoU, would provide MOMRA with consultants and infrastructure services to implement the municipal information system called “Baladi”.

MOMRA’s vision on municipal information system seeks to provide accessible e-services anywhere, at any time and through any media. Under Baladi, business processes will be standardised and analysis will be provided based on the accurate information the system maintains and delivers.

The Kingdom launched the e-government initiative in 2003 following a royal decree issued the same year.