Getting closer to e-services in public sector

AN EU-wide programme aimed to support the secure exchange of data and documents is being implemented in Cyprus’ public service, Transport minister Marios Demetriades announced on Wednesday.

Co-funded by the government and the EU, the process to introduce the “e-delivery” project began in September with an initial budget of €334,000 and is set to be completed in autumn 2019.

“The aim is to improve the provision of public services as they will be digitised and simplified,” Demetriades said.

The project is part of the Connecting Europe Facility and has five branches – e-delivery, e-invoice, e-translation, e-signature and e-identification.

Postal services chief Andreas Gregoriou said e-delivery involves exchanging data within and between member states and their citizens in a secure way, reducing the risk of human error, while e-invoice concerns the issuing of electronic invoices and receipts.

E-translation allows public services to exchange documents bypassing the language barrier, while e-signature will make it easier for citizens to deal with public services. E-identification offers the possibility of providing electronic services to citizens, Gregoriou said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.