Providing digital services 'not a choice but necessity': PM Barzani

The Kurdistan Region’s prime minister on Wednesday announced that providing public services in digital is “not a choice but a necessity” for the government as it reduces red tape and enhances the quality of work.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s prime minister on Wednesday announced that providing public services in digital is “not a choice but a necessity” for the government as it reduces red tape and enhances the quality of work.

Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s remarks came during a signing ceremony of an agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and German Mühlbauer Group, a tech company specializing in providing digital services, including smart cards, and ePassport.

“Ending reliance on paperwork and providing digital services is not a choice but a necessity,” Prime Minister Barzani told the audience, which consisted of various KRG officials, German diplomats, and private sector figures.

“We do not have any other way: whether we develop with technology or we stagnate in the past,” Barzani said in his speech.

The KRG has an ambitious plan to digitalize the government paperwork in order to reduce red tape and boost work quality.

“From the upcoming year on, each citizen of Kurdistan Region would own a digital ID,” Barzani announced, adding that the first phase of the digitalization project would start in the traffic sector, including driving licenses, and car registration.

The planned project would have “two million beneficiaries” once it is finalized, Barzani noted, as “every driver would have a smart card,” which facilitates the work of mobile police units to better regulate traffic affairs.

The KRG Ministry of Interior, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), and Mühlbauer Group, have been in talks since 2019 to prepare the project. Once it is finalized on the large scale, it would produce the Kurdistan Region’s “population data that is a prerequisite to delivery of digital services,” Barzani said.

“We want to be a real digital government for the sake of reducing spending and creating a vision among the government’s ministries which would facilitate better decision making and service provision,” Barzani said at the end of his speech.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany