By Nada Al-Maddah
Saudi Gazette

MAKKAH – Prince Mansour Bin Mite’b Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, launched Makkah Mayoralty’s new e-services that can be accessed through iPhones and Android phones.
Users of these smart devices will benefit from a wide range of services such as enquiring about a certain transaction, business activity regulations, construction licenses, petitions and complaints. Users can get information about the Mayoralty and municipalities and about how to contact an official.
Dr. Ibrahim Abdullah, general supervisor of information technology, Makkah Mayoralty, said these services also provide citizens with information about plots of lands in addition to any other details related to land.
The system has been designed by Oracle’s Siebel and is used in cities like New York and Hong Kong, Dr. Abdullah added.
“The system depends on geographical information systems, which allow users to view the location of land.”
He also said that handwritten signatures have been replaced with a barcode system and that the number of procedures for issuing construction licenses has been reduced from 39 to 13.