THE MORE THE BETTER

In the slightly more than a year that the "ASAN" service has existed, fully justifying the expectations of its initiators and those who implemented the ideas of setting up such a unique organisation spearheaded at making it easier for the public to have contacts with the state, it has become a national brand in Azerbaijan, of which we can rightly be proud and whose experience we can share with others. 

At the same time, the service's profile is continuing to expand, and not just from a geographical point of view, but also in the extent of what is on offer, embracing ever more types of service and making the lives of the country's citizens much easier. President Ilham Aliyev's recent decree on the setting up of an "ASAN payments" system is another important step here, which makes it possible to pay fines and court-imposed penalties on-line. Besides this, "ASAN" has extended the range of services it is offering to the issuing of deeds of purchase for housing, as well as to other procedures. 

Additional and extra services

In compliance with President Ilham Aliyev's instructions on introducing amendments to the decree "On expanding the types of services and the on-line services made available at 'ASAN' centres and on providing for operations at the State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations [ASAN] under the president of Azerbaijan", the multifunctional "ASAN    payments" system is to be set up. Drivers will be the first to benefit from it, since notice of administrative fines or photo or video evidence generated by violations of the highway code will be sent to them by email or to their mobile phone. They previously received notification by post and this was not always delivered to the right address. As a result, the case was often disputed and drivers were left dissatisfied, since, without knowing it, the driver was "blacklisted", which meant he encountered additional problems when he was driving and moreover, because he had failed to pay the fine on time, he incurred extra penalties. Now "ASAN payments" is monitoring payment of fines and serving notice of payment deadlines. Besides this, payment of administrative fines can simply be made on-line, using a mobile phone.

We note, Central Bank of Azerbaijan [CBA] Deputy Chairman Alim Quliyev told journalists, that the bank is working together with the ASAN service's centres to integrate "ASAN payment" into a state payments' e-portal. "Besides this, we shall work together on this with the banking sector. The introduction of the 'ASAN payment' system will become yet another important step in developing and promoting cash-free payments in the country," he added.  

As far as the immediate changes in the "ASAN" service itself are concerned, many citizens were pleased to hear that they could use it to obtain copies and registration certificates regarding the rights to ownership of individual housing properties and, to put it simply, to obtain the deeds of purchase. On behalf of Ministry of Justice the "ASAN" service will also be able to register and de-register conscripts and citizens in the military files, to register documents pertaining to travel abroad, to authenticate and establish the legal validity of a document and check whether it is in compliance with the legislation of the country where it was issued. 

Somewhat earlier, from 1 February the SOCAR [State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic] company's "Azeriqaz" production association began to offer five types of services to its customers through the "ASAN" No. 1 service. These include the following: re-issuing of lost gas meter smart cards; setting gas usage limits for tenants who have been forced to move from the locality where they were registered; making public the customer's data regarding gas usage and payment and any existing unpaid tariffs. The list of services also includes gas meter smart card customers registering change of personal information and providing smart card gas usage readings. All these services are available to "Azeriqaz" customers using the ITRON-SOCAR meter smart cards. 

From 3 February the "ASAN" Service also started to offer mobile services in Baku. As part of a pilot project, for an additional charge set by the law, citizens are being offered services at their place of residence or employment.

For each citizen

In short, the "ASAN Service's" "service made easy" has markedly expanded its operations. As the chairman of the president's State Agency for Public Service and Social Innovations, Inam Karimov, noted, "since the beginning of last year the operations at the 'ASAN Service' centres have become a turning point in the provision of state-related services. Although these centres are 'comparatively new', we are already prepared to share our experience, since the 'ASAN Service' has become an Azerbaijani product, a new Azerbaijani brand."

"The specific legal structure of this experiment has been approved by many international partners and experts. It is no accident that the influential world mass information media and international organisations have taken particular note of the 'ASAN Service's' progressive experience as an 'Azerbaijani model' in rendering state-related services," I. Karimov noted. "We would like to remind you that last year the anti-corruption network in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), recognised the operation of 'ASAN' as an 'experiment deserving of approval'".

According to the head of the |Azerbaijani president's department for work with the legal bodies, Fuad Alasgarov, the main aims of the recent reforms was also to eliminate direct contact between citizens and state bodies, to provide for transparency and efficiency, to prevent corruption and other negative phenomena, to prevent individuals who have broken the law from avoiding the penalties, from getting out of paying fines. 

It is quite important that the process of upgrading in this segment of the economy is an on-going one. For example, one of the next stages is going to be on-line registration of the services provided by the state bodies. "At the present time, they are working on listing the total number of services rendered by the state bodies and entering them in the register. This on-line register will allow us to determine which services are available and which ones should be listed on-line. This will speed up the process of going over to 'e-government'," F. Alasgarov noted.

"ASAN-xidmat" is an innovatory step taken by the government to help citizens access state-related services, which is a clear example of the systems of social reform being implemented, which are aimed at improving citizens' wellbeing and ensuring human rights. The setting up of 'ASAN centres' has opened up a new stage in the system of state administration. This has also provided an impetus for those in the younger generation possessing professional skills and adhering to the rules of ethical norms to train as civil servants," I. Karimov noted. He said that before the end of 2014 the service would extend to everywhere in the republic's territory, which would eliminate restrictions on applications in the place of residence. 

This means that convenience and fully transparent contacts with state bodies will become completely accessible to every citizen throughout the country. This is precisely what forms the essential basis of all these efforts. President Ilham Aliyev noted that "the setting up of the 'ASAN Service' has a part to play not only in the public service sphere, but also in the future, successful, modern development of our country as a whole."

FACTS AND FIGURES

The "ASAN Service's" operations extend to 3.5m people, which is almost 37 per cent of the country's population. 

Since it began operating more than 1.1m people have availed themselves of the various services offered by "ASAN Service" centres. In areas not covered by the centres, buses fitted out with special equipment have helped in rendering mobile services to approximately 60,000 citizens 

Some 6,000-6,5000 citizens contact the "ASAN Service" centres every day. Since it started operating on 1 February 2013 its call centre has logged 148,000 calls. 

Some 35,000 inquiries have been made on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. According to the results of a survey and an exit poll conducted at the centres, 95-100 per cent of citizens are satisfied with the "ASAN Service's" operation.