The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat held a press conference, today, at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) premises, in Smart Village.

He ascertained that notarization services will be rendered to citizens automatically through 361 equipped offices, by the end of September. This is within the framework of the project of building Digital Egypt and with the aim to achieve a breakthrough and provide an integrated system through which notarization services can be delivered decently to Egyptian citizens.

Talaat stated that the project is the result of the effective cooperation with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Local Development, to unify resources. The new services will be provided through the Ministry of Justice’s notarization and property registration offices, MCIT post offices, and the citizen service offices of the Ministry of Local Development and at different governorates.

The ICT Minister presented the key features of Digital Egypt project, in which the efforts of all the state sectors are concerted to provide services more easily to citizens. A pilot project was implemented in Port Said City, in June 2019, with the number of digital government services launched reaching about 155, he added.

Talaat underlined that Digital Egypt pilot website started operating this month, nationwide, providing 70 government services, including food subsidy services, in cooperation with the Ministry of Supply; vehicle and driving license services, in cooperation with the Public Prosecution and the Ministry of Interior; and notarization and litigation services, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, with other services to follow.

Citizens can pay the service fee using e-payment methods, including credit cards, e-payment platforms and mobile wallets. Citizens will also be able to obtain these services later through a mobile application that will be launched in the coming weeks, or through call centers, post offices or citizen service centers, highlighted the ICT Minister.

He discussed the development of Egypt Post, becoming one of the outlets for providing Digital Egypt services, given the citizens’ trust in it and the availability of 4,000 post offices nationwide. Talaat said that 816 post offices were automated and developed, with another 782 to be developed by the end of the current fiscal year, at a total cost of EGP 3.2 billion.

Furthermore, a project is implemented to double the number of ATMs, from 350 to 700, during the current fiscal year, at EGP 300 million, as well as to increase the number of offices through establishing more post kiosks at gas stations. This is in addition to a plan for deploying mobile post offices, as there has been an agreement with the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) for manufacturing 84 vehicles equipped with post offices and ATMs. The vehicles will be used at rush times in post offices, especially during pension disbursement.

On notarization services, Talaat stated that service providers, the personnel at notarization and post office, citizen service centers and call centers, were trained to provide the services professionally. He added that citizens can obtain the services through Digital Egypt platform, without having to visit the office in person, except to verify their identity and receive the hard copy of the document.

Talaat said that an application was launched, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, to detect congestion at the offices where notarization services are provided, thus allowing citizens to choose the best time to obtain the service at off-peak periods.

Within the framework of implementing Digital Egypt projects, high priority is given to cybersecurity and data security, said the ICT Minister, referring to the efforts exerted to develop the ICT infrastructure, through implementing a project to boost Internet efficiency. This helped accommodate the huge surge in Internet traffic, amid the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This is in addition to conducting the exams of the first stage of secondary education, electronically, with no complaints, as well as the project for connecting the 32,000 state buildings, nationwide, through a fiber optic network, at EGP six billion. The number of 800 state buildings was connected in Port Said City last year, and 5,300 buildings were connected this year, as part of phase one of the Digital Egypt project.