Kurdish parliament passes Electronic Signatures and Transactions’ federal bill
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Regional parliament on Tuesday passed the Electronic Signatures and Transactions’ federal bill, a bill defined by the Region’s prime minister as a “big, critical step in the cabinet’s digital transformation agenda”.
“The passage of this important piece of legislation - a collaborative effort across the whole of government with support of global best practices and expertise - means we have taken another big, critical step in the cabinet’s digital transformation agenda, and our promise to become a fully digital government by 2025,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a statement following the parliamentary vote.
According to Barzani, the bill will provide “the legal framework necessary for citizens and businesses, and the government as a whole to pivot to digital signatures.”
With the bill passed, Barzani’s cabinet would have crossed off another part of their digital transformation strategy.
The Digital Transformation Strategy was made public by Prime Minister Barzani in October, outlining the different steps the government will be taking to ensure that by 2025, “citizens and residents of the Kurdistan Region will have access to simpler, faster, connected, secure and transparent services that are tailored to their needs”.
According to him, the strategy will not only facilitate how people access government services, but it will also encourage foreign investment and help develop the different sectors of the Region.
While the objective is to implement the plan fully in the next three years, the KRG’s DIT has already digitalized a number of government services.
Among the services that have already been digitalized by the KRG are the driving license renewal process and digital company registration system, which the government says has reduced the time needed to register a company from weeks to only 24 hours.
However, those are only part of a chain of systems that the DIT has prepared to launch such as the Kurdistan Financial Management System (KFMS) aimed at centralizing financial units, a digital payroll system, and a citizen complaint system.
Among the most prominent pending works of the DIT would be the Population Information System and the Citizen Application, through which citizens will receive authentic digital IDs, and through the citizen application be able to check their bills and will be able to pay them digitally at a later stage.
The passage of the Electronic Signatures and Transactions’ federal bill on Tuesday adds to the cabinet’s achievement of inaugurating the Region’s first data center in September.
“The passage of this important piece of legislation - a collaborative effort across the whole of government with support of global best practices and expertise - means we have taken another big, critical step in the cabinet’s digital transformation agenda, and our promise to become a fully digital government by 2025,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a statement following the parliamentary vote.
According to Barzani, the bill will provide “the legal framework necessary for citizens and businesses, and the government as a whole to pivot to digital signatures.”
With the bill passed, Barzani’s cabinet would have crossed off another part of their digital transformation strategy.
The Digital Transformation Strategy was made public by Prime Minister Barzani in October, outlining the different steps the government will be taking to ensure that by 2025, “citizens and residents of the Kurdistan Region will have access to simpler, faster, connected, secure and transparent services that are tailored to their needs”.
According to him, the strategy will not only facilitate how people access government services, but it will also encourage foreign investment and help develop the different sectors of the Region.
While the objective is to implement the plan fully in the next three years, the KRG’s DIT has already digitalized a number of government services.
Among the services that have already been digitalized by the KRG are the driving license renewal process and digital company registration system, which the government says has reduced the time needed to register a company from weeks to only 24 hours.
However, those are only part of a chain of systems that the DIT has prepared to launch such as the Kurdistan Financial Management System (KFMS) aimed at centralizing financial units, a digital payroll system, and a citizen complaint system.
Among the most prominent pending works of the DIT would be the Population Information System and the Citizen Application, through which citizens will receive authentic digital IDs, and through the citizen application be able to check their bills and will be able to pay them digitally at a later stage.
The passage of the Electronic Signatures and Transactions’ federal bill on Tuesday adds to the cabinet’s achievement of inaugurating the Region’s first data center in September.