GDRFA Dubai goes completely paperless
Department does away with 88 million papers and over 1,300 printers in three years
Dubai: The General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai has achieved the ‘100 per cent Paperless Stamp’ by the Dubai Digital Authority (DDA).
GDRFA-Dubai’s new achievement comes in line of its success in realising the ‘Dubai Paperless Strategy’ and completing the digital transformation of all its operations and services.
The results led to savings of around Dh358 million, in addition to saving more than 3.8 million working hours and preserving more than 10,300 trees.
The DDA honoured GDRFA in a ceremony held on Monday on the sidelines of the second day of GITEX Global 2021, which is being hosted at Dubai World Trade Centre till Thursday.
Lieutenant General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, Director-General, GDRFA-Dubai, said: “Three years ago, we took it upon ourselves to implement the Dubai Paperless Strategy... to transform Dubai government into a paperless government by the end of 2021.”
Back then, the number of printers was 1,381, but within one year only, GDRFA-Dubai managed to transform the department into a paperless entity and discontinued 31 per cent of the number of printers that were in use.
“We formed an internal team to implement the paperless strategy inside the directorate and the team has taken advantage of COVID-19 pandemic to accelerate our transformation into a paperless entity despite all challenges and achieved the goals in record time,” Al Marri added.
The GDRFA achieved 80 per cent paperless transformation in 2020 and decreased the number of printers by 56 per cent (425 printers).
This decline continued further this year to reach 100 per cent transformation and zero printers, thanks to the department been granted the paperless stamp.
“Thanks to the paperless strategy, we cancelled the consumption of about 88,339,689 papers that were used in transactions.”
The ceremony held in presence of Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, the DDA’s Director General, and Wesam Lootah, CEO of Smart Dubai, as well as a number of senior officials in GDRFA-Dubai.