/ 26 January 2004

‘E-government won’t eliminate jobs’

Governments that employ e-government will not eliminate jobs but will provide their citizens with a more efficient and transparent administration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said on Sunday.

In a speech to an Arab technology conference, Gates said e-government has been a ”huge focus” for Microsoft. He tried to allay fears that it would drive governments to cut jobs.

”It will simply allow government to provide better service.

There is a lot of demand for things to be done better. This simply should contribute into that in a very strong way,” Gates added.

Gates and Egyptian Prime Minister Ate Obeyed launched the e-government portal in Cairo on Saturday. The founder of Microsoft is making his first visit to the Middle East.

E-government aims to cut through bureaucracy and facilitate government operations by allowing people to communicate via computers. Citizens can do research, obtain information and make transactions online.

Red tape is endemic in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, a country of 70-million with a huge, multilayered bureaucracy and more than 5-million civil servants.

In a question and answer session at the conference on Sunday, Bahraini Commerce Minister Ail al-Saleh said the region needs the help of Microsoft and other computer firms. He urged the Seattle-based company to open a centre in the Middle East similar to those it has in China and the Far East.

Gates responded the region could use such centres, but they should come about through a partnership between Microsoft and local companies.

The Microsoft chairman said his company is engaged in various ventures in Egypt, including providing low-cost computers and ”working together on e-government that creates more openness (and) creates more efficiency.”

”There is a lot of potential here,” Gates told reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier in the day. ”I really think that a lot of what we’re doing here is an example not just for the Middle East, but for the entire world.”

During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week, Gates announced a partnership with the UN Development Programme to provide software, computer training and cash to establish computer centres in poor communities, starting with pilot projects in Egypt, Mozambique and Morocco. He said the centres would not have to use only Microsoft products.

Egypt’s minister of communication and information technology, Ahmed Mahmoud Nazif, has welcomed the help, noting that about 500 to 600 centres have already been set up in his country.

Nazif said Microsoft is interested in increasing the capabilities of Egyptian companies to create job opportunities and their ability to export.

Gates said e-government ”is a very interesting thing” whose potential hasn’t been fully achieved by any country.

Even the U.S. government lags behind those of smaller countries, such as Singapore and Ireland, when it comes to e-government, Gates said.

”My extreme view is that people shouldn’t have to do paperwork at all. They shouldn’t have to stand in line at all,” he said.

In reply to a conference question, Gates said Microsoft was committed to ensuring that all its program tools work for Arabic content. – Sapa-AP