DEWA firm on eliminating govt bureaucracy: Al Tayer
- Last updated: August 3, 2025 | 11:43
Gulf Today, Staff Reporter
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), has emphasised DEWA’s commitment to fulfilling the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to eliminate government bureaucracy and boost the UAE’s competitiveness.
The UAE was ranked first globally in the 2025 Absence of Bureaucracy Index, part of the Government Efficiency pillar in the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking.
Al Tayer announced that DEWA achieved digital integration across more than 100 projects, in collaboration with 65 government and private organisations, while service automation reached 100%.
This raised the digital adoption of DEWA’s services to 99.5%, taking the customer happiness and service quality scores to 98.3% and 95%, respectively.
Through the implementation of the “Services 360” policy, DEWA eliminated 90% of service delivery points, streamlining procedures and enhancing customer happiness. DEWA provides all its services digitally through its website, smart app and unified government channels.
DEWA has re-engineered its services to become fully digital – from application submissions to procedure tracking and document issuance. As part of its ‘High Water Usage Alert’ service, DEWA issued more than 3.2 million alerts for water leaks within buildings, preventing the loss of more than 61 million cubic metres of water and helping to save Dhs743 million.
Al Tayer emphasised DEWA’s keenness to eliminate unnecessary procedures and reduce transport costs for stakeholders through the provision of proactive, innovative and secure digital services.
He reaffirmed DEWA’s commitment to continuous development in its drive to provide efficient, high-quality and effective services that improve people’s lives and meet their needs swiftly and effortlessly.
DEWA continues to adopt the latest technologies to simplify government procedures, accelerate digital transformation, enhance system efficiency and bolster digital integration with government agencies.
Digital transformation provides better monitoring of service performance and more accurate data management, enabling early problem detection and rapid corrective action. Through an integrated transaction monitoring system, officials can enhance service quality and make data-driven decisions, raising the level of trust and transparency in government operations.
The Smart Response Water initiative, which relies on AI-powered verification via DEWA’s smart app and website, has achieved tangible results in operational efficiency.
The number of steps required to handle reports has been reduced from 10 to five in the case of field visits, and to just one for self-diagnosis. Report processing times were also reduced by 45% while field visits were cut by 36%, resulting in a customer satisfaction rate of 95.7%.
Meanwhile, the Smart Water Interruptions Management System initiative has yielded commendable results by reducing the number of technical reports and shortening reporting times from two hours to a single click. This enables continuous network monitoring and immediate identification of affected customers. Performance metrics are now calculated in real-time, an improvement from the initial time of 30 minutes, while the average investigative response time for investigations dropped from 45 minutes to just 10.
Separately, DEWA organised 10 events from February 2023 to February 2025, in collaboration with the Emirates Marine Environmental Group, resulting in the planting of 13,350 mangrove trees at Jebel Ali Marine Sanctuary. More than 1,650 volunteers – including DEWA employees, their families, subsidiary staff and DEWA Academy students – recorded 3,626 hours of service.
Additionally, DEWA removed 3,546 kilogrammes of mostly plastic waste and cleared eight tonnes of algae and seaweed from the beach of the reserve.
Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said, “Driven by our social responsibility, we have been launching campaigns and initiatives for years to encourage employees, their families and community members to plant more trees, support nature-based solutions to combat climate change, support biodiversity and preserve the environment and terrestrial and marine habitats.