Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, DEWA, has called on the public to vote for its One Step initiative, which has been shortlisted for the Hamdan bin Mohammed Programme for Smart Government 2017. The programme is supervised by Dubai’s The Model Centre, part of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of Dubai. The public can vote for the ‘Best Government Initiative’ from 23rd November to 7th December 2017.

The One Step initiative, which is available across several platforms supported by Artificial Intelligence, AI, has reduced customers’ time and effort, as well as the number of steps from six to just one, to activate, deactivate, and transfer electricity and water services. It also provides smart options to pay bills without having to visit DEWA’s Customer Happiness Centres. The initiative benefits over 800,000 customers in Dubai, and contributes to avoiding 96 tonnes of carbon emissions resulting from 7 million transactions a year. Customer happiness regarding the initiative has reached over 96%.

The initiative also provides self-service and smart payment methods at DEWA’s customer happiness centres, giving customers additional smart payment options. Customers can benefit from the easy payment plans when they use credit cards issued by Emirates NBD or Mashreq banks, with no interest or additional charges.

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA, expressed his delight that the One Step initiative has been shortlisted by the Hamdan bin Mohammed Programme for Smart Government. He noted that the initiative is part of DEWA’s efforts to implement The Model Centre’s methodology to improve government services, and DEWA’s commitment to involve all stakeholders and the public in developing and improving its services. This is to achieve stakeholders’ happiness. DEWA cooperates with its partners from the government and private sector to achieve this.