iGA chief: ‘Building permit insurance refunds now available electronically through the Benayat system’
Manama, June 8 (BNA): The Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA) announced that building permit insurance refunds can now be processed online as part of the municipal services available on the Benayat Building Permit Portal, which it launched alongside the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning.
Applicants who have insurance amounts pending with Municipalities Affairs can now conveniently retrieve them online once they complete their construction projects, and the related building completion certificates are issued. The service is in line with the iGA’s efforts to offer as many online government services as possible, to meet the needs of all sectors, raise public sector efficiency, attract investment to the Kingdom, and support its economic development.
The iGA Chief Executive, Mohammad Ali Al Qaed said that the launch was in line with the directives of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa and the Cabinet to implement the first phase of a project to reengineer government eServices. Priority was given to services which received the most frequent complaints through the National Complaints and Suggestions System, Tawasul. The iGA worked in cooperation with the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning (Municipal Affairs) to implement the directives through joint technical teams. They studied the services offered by Municipalities Affairs and reengineered them in coordination with the Government Services Development Committee.
The first phase of this project includes insurance refunds for building permits and road works, and advertisements related to building permits issued through Benayat portal. The processes were simplified and launched online. In this regard, Al Qaed praised the Ministry’s keenness to accelerate its pace of digital transformation and provide its services electronically, in cooperation with the iGA and in line with the Kingdom’s comprehensive digital transformation plan.
Al Qaed explained that the service was provided within Benayat, an electronic system that specializes in issuing building-related licenses, to speed up the process and link it to the Government Notification Service which automatically communicates to the beneficiary when verifications and refunds are completed. The service will be tested for three months on residential applications (classification: RA, RB, RHA, RHC, RG and RHB), following which it will cover all other types of applications in the next phase.
Al Qaed affirmed the authority's intent to raise the efficiency of government operations and services by reengineering procedures and linking the IT systems of various government and private agencies in order to provide convenient services that meet the public’s needs.
The iGA explained that once the building completion certificate is issued through Benayat, the system will send a link requesting the insurance refund to the owners via their registered SMS and e-mail contact details, which eliminates the need for an owner to personally visit the municipality to benefit from the refund service. The Government Notification Service is designed to ensure that the insurance refund reaches the owner specifically, who is required to register for the notifications to benefit from the refund and other government services.
The iGA further confirmed that when users enter their data, the contact information will be verified and then the status of the refund request will be displayed to the owners and Engineering offices through Benayat. Notifications will be sent to users with a link to the Municipality Affairs website to enter their IBAN numbers and attach documents to verify this bank information, and to complete entering their data in a safe and secure manner, after which the owners will be notified of the completion of the refund via text message and email. The status of the request can be checked through the system.
