The great revolution of gov.gr shows the value of technology when it is used for convenience rather than for other reasons by working with anonymity.
It’s not just a top reform. It doesn’t just bring modernization of the state. It is a profound breakthrough that has changed and is changing the landscape, particularly in what it means for a citizen to have a relationship with a normal state that deals with the needs of the citizen, not the other way around.
On gov.gr’s birthday, Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred to the fact that every certificate, every document that is abolished in terms of the citizen’s contact with the state not only reduces bureaucracy, but is also a weapon against corruption and the possibility of the state operating at the expense of the citizen.
The younger generations are living a small miracle. And if anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, they need only remember what we faced not so long ago, but up to six years ago. Let them remember the hours lost in transportation and queues at public services -in total- and in banks.
Let him remember the queues, the waiting, the … moving not only to services but withinthe services themselves for a document, for a signature and for a stamp. Recall the familiar “get a photocopy across the street at the little shop” or “go to the third for approval and go down to the first, at the counter” etc.
Maybe younger people could take a look at that video circulating on social media of the late Harry Klynn in a public office, it’s almost informative of prevailing situations, with whatever exaggeration of satire – actual satire – it contains.
This great revolution – for it is a revolution – also shows the value of technology when it is of course used for the convenience of the citizen and not for other reasons by the instrumentalization of anonymity.
What the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has achieved is already an example. Let’s not forget what happened with pandemic, with vaccines, with travel.
Things that we older people certainly saw, as we saw the first mobile phones,but younger people are using to their advantage and to the benefit of society as a whole, of development itself.
The evidence is catalytic. By digitizing administrative processes – and tackling bureaucratic ones – in addition to the… mental well-being of citizens, we have an annual resource saving of more than 562 million euros.
And that’s not all. We are also talking about savings of over 205 million sheets of paper but also a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of over 43,000 tonnes. And all this with the digital services of gov.gr having exceeded 2,250, as Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the pioneer of this development with a worthy successor, we should note, the current responsible minister Dimitris Papastergiou.
Yes, it’s a dithyrambic article. How could it be otherwise for such a reform that, if anything, highlights what can be done when there is a plan and vision which, it should be noted, started with one of the key tools,112, and continued with the major breakthrough of autonomous signing to reach the current standards.
The reaction of opposition parties, including Alexis Tsipras’s ELAS,is cause for concern. The negation, especially of a reform with a tangible and measurable result, is not a positive sign for something that defines itself as… new.
