“Digitization is high on the agenda of the Serbian government, and the state wants a faster, more efficient and transparent state and local government and public services for all its citizens. The government won’t give up on this goal”, said Branko Ruzic, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government at the Digital 2017 conference.
He said that the goal of the state is to follow the world trends in the digital sphere and explained that the state, although it is a time-consuming process, because the system, habits and way of thinking do not change overnight, has made really big steps in the past period in the field of public administration reform.
“We have set sound bases for systemic solutions that allow for further progress in the acting of the administration, both internally and towards the citizens,” said Ruzic and added that in a period of only one year several important electronic services have been put into operation in order to facilitate administrative procedures and improve service delivery to citizens. Some of these services include: registration of newborns as early as in maternity wards through the project “Baby, welcome to the world”, online enrolment in preschools, etc.
As a particularly important novelty, the Minister mentioned the networking of databases for the electronic exchange of necessary data so that public administration employees can quickly, easily and electronically access the data.
The Minister explained that the so-called eZUP has been also established, which is the first and excellent tool that enables employees to exchange electronic data in order to provide citizens with faster services. “From 1 June to the date, the Serbian administration has, through the eZUP, exchanged over 15,000 documents! This is just the beginning, because this opens many issues for which we try to find solutions, which we will answer with the adoption of the on e-Government Act by the end of the year and which will be another systemic solution,” said Ruzic.
In order to support the claim that digitalisation is a government priority, the Minister recalled that the IT Office has been established, which directly corresponds with the Prime Minister. “From now on, I hope that we will not only speak figuratively about the seal as a thing of the past, but we will really send it there,” the Minister said.