- DEWA scores highest grade ever received by a government organisation in the history of Dubai Government Excellence
- DEWA has won the Financially Distinguished Performance Award 3 out of 4 cycles of the Dubai Government Excellence Program
- DEWA wins gold in the Dubai Human Development Award and Dubai Quality Award
- DEWA wins the Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) continues its journey of excellence and continuous achievements. Not a week passes by without receiving a new prize or marking yet another success to add to its long list of accomplishments that grows day by day on a local, regional and global scale. One of its most prominent achievements this year is its winning the most number of awards at the 9th Dubai Government Excellence Program. This feat proves DEWA’s excellence once again in fulfilling the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the leader of the path to excellence, who personally presents awards to the winners of the Dubai Government Excellence Program every year to promote excellence as an important means of transforming into the government of the future.
Six awards at Dubai Government Excellence Program 2016
This year, HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum honoured DEWA with 6 awards under the Dubai Government Excellence Program. Three of them were in the Excellence categories, namely, Distinguished Government Entity, Financially Distinguished Performance, Distinguished Entity in Government Communications, Creative Idea Award (for DEWA’s intelligent control system on low-voltage fires), Distinguished Employee Award for technical and engineering for Career Excellence, and the Unknown Soldier Award.
DEWA wins gold in the Dubai Human Development Award and the Dubai Quality Award
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) won gold in the Dubai Human Development Award and the Dubai Quality Award. The awards mark DEWA’s efforts and achievements in corporate excellence. DEWA received the awards during a ceremony organised by the Department of Economic Development, and held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The Dubai Quality Award is based on the Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM), and has been successfully applied in the public and private sectors since 1994. It provides a comprehensive framework for corporate excellence.
DEWA wins the Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance
HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance, honoured Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) at the 18th Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance. DEWA won Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance 2016. The award was received by HE Matar Humaid Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of DEWA, and HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, with Khawla Al Mehairi, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications at DEWA, DEWA’s Conservation Team was also present.
DEWA sets new record at Dubai Government Excellence Program 2016
DEWA’s acceptance of the Distinguished Government Entity award during the 9th Dubai Government Excellence Program was significant as it broke the record for the highest mark scored by a government organisation for government excellence in Dubai. DEWA got 641 out of 1,000. This is the highest grade ever received by a government organisation since the inception of the Dubai Government Excellence Program. The record will require exceptional competition in order to be surpassed.
Since the launch of the Dubai Government Excellence Program, DEWA has received a third of the Distinguished Government Entity awards, winning three out of nine times. The first time was in 2000 for its 1999 performance, the second in 2008 for the period from 2006 to 2007 and the third in 2016 for 2013 to 2015. DEWA was considered a strong contender in the sessions it did not win in.
The Dubai Government Excellence Program ran for 1999-2015 for a while between 2 excellence cycles for the category of Distinguished Government Entity. The award was initially given annually (1998 and 1999), then every two years (from 2000 to 2009), before finally being handed out every three years (from 2010 to 2015).
Continuous Growth in DEWA’s Performance
DEWA’s notable performance in the Dubai Government Excellence Program has seen constant and uninterrupted growth. DEWA’s performance, which is rated through points of institutional excellence assigned by the program, has seen positive growth from 1999-2015 in all cycles with the exception of a minor decline in its points in the 2008-2009 cycle, which saw a decline from 582 in the 2006-2007cycle to 577 in the 2008-2009 cycle, a slight decrease of less than 1%.
DEWA’s points increased in the 2016 cycle by 54 points over the previous cycle, a rise of 9.2%, which is the second-highest growth rate DEWA has achieved since the beginning of its participation in the DGEP. The highest growth rate was 10.6% during the 2000-2001 cycle compared to the 1999 cycle. The total points from 1999-2015 increased by 170, a growth of 36% in a span of 16 years.
Thanks and Appreciation
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO, DEWA, expressed his gratitude to HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance, and to HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai. Al Tayer thanked them for their support for excellence and distinction in the performance of government institutions to meet the highest international standards.
Al Tayer emphasised that the sensible instructions and wise vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has contributed to DEWA’s success and excellence in its services, initiatives, development projects and its constant aspiration to be in the lead by implementing the best international standards, to achieve its vision to become a sustainable innovative world-class utility.
“HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has taught us that in our race to lead, “We look forward to excellence as a challenge rather than an achievement. Achievement is what we attain for future of our people; while the march of excellence continues and does not stop at any limits or borders,”” said Al Tayer. “Excellence to us in DEWA is a daily programme implemented with planning and precision, tentatively revised plans carried out by all employees to accomplish our leadership’s vision, provide customer happiness in particular and earn society’s approval in general, which in turn makes Dubai number one and effectively contribute to the sustained growth of the nation.”
Al Tayer noted that DEWA was recently awarded the Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance, as an institution that support education. This support was done through the conservation award that DEWA initiated, ‘For a Better Tomorrow,’ which over the last 10 years has supported economic conservation across 162 facilities and has helped 270,000 students to apply the principles of conservation, with 125 GWh of electricity and 24 million gallons of water saved, amounting to savings of AED 90 million. DEWA also won the Dubai Quality Awards - Gold Award and the Dubai Human Development Award 2016.
Praise
Al Tayer commended the Dubai Government Excellence Program for its prominent role in motivating the government sector to succeed and raise its performance levels in various sectors as well as greatly improving government agencies’ performance by introducing self-evaluation, which is used alongside the program’s own evaluation. Moreover, it also spreads the ideals of excellence, creativity, and quality, while it also implements the best administrative and professional methods. Dubai Government Excellence Program also provided a positive environment for motivating all government circles to strive to implement excellence and creativity. Al Tayer also stated that this great success comes from implementing the instruction of the wise leadership and the spirit of teamwork that DEWA embraced, which is the key strength it has to utilise energy, maximise productivity, and sustain progress.
“We are proud to win six awards in Dubai Government Excellence Award 2016, which was launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 1997 as the first programme in the world dedicated to government excellence, to become a leader in the development of the government sector in Dubai and the adaptation of the government sector to the various current challenges and improvement of the performance of government circles by applying standards of institutional excellence and using these standards for constant improvements to services and performance.
Financially Distinguished Performance
According to Jassim Rajab, Financial Controller at DEWA, the Government Excellence Award for Financial Excellence is given to the institution that applies sound financial governance, creates financial sustainability, conserves spending while increasing revenue, and efficiently manages its finances regarding production, shipment, and distribution, which keeps spending in-check.
“DEWA was awarded the Government Excellence Award for Financial Excellence 3 times in the last four cycles. The reasons for DEWA’s award are attributed to a number of factors, which include sound short, medium, and long term financial planning, tying financial plans to DEWA’s strategies and to the strategies of Dubai and the UAE, implementing international accounting standards, sound financial governance in all operations, sustaining outstanding financial results, innovation in the work process, which involves moving from the typical process to one that relies on partnership with the private sector, which supports Dubai’s vision to become a global hub for trade, finance, tourism, and green economy, and using smart applications in financial services, while improving and simplifying financial transactions, which made it the first in the MENA region and the fourth in the world for getting electricity, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business report in 2016, for the third year in a row. DEWA also succeeded in constantly improving its credit rating according to Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, which boosted the company’s trust among investors and its ability to get the best lending rates,” said Rajab.
DEWA has also been awarded the Middle East Award for Financial Excellence: Best Financial Deal in 2015, from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Britain. It was also awarded by NASDAQ after the great success it had in issuing Islamic bonds worth USD 1 billion. DEWA also received the award for best deal from the Export Guarantee Agency.
DEWA: The Distinguished Entity in Government Communications
Khawla Al Mehairi, VP of Marketing and Corporate Communications at DEWA says that receiving the Distinguished Entity in Government Communications award for the Dubai Government Excellence Awards can be attributed to its adoption and implementation of a comprehensive communications strategy supported by leadership as well as providing the necessary tools for its execution. This includes the development of resources in communication channels and the effective internal and external transformation of smartphone applications to communicate with customers and other interested groups, to keep pace with new services, played an important role in achieving an effective communications strategy. This was also achieved by taking into account the cultural diversity of the target audience through various traditional, electronic and intelligent channels of communication with the public based on the happiness of the community, sustainability, innovation and values.
According to Al Mehairi, the Distinguished Entity in Government Communications category is an optional category of the Dubai Government Excellence Program that governments can be nominated for in every two cycles, to know more about programmes and initiatives that public organisations have implement to improve communications, the importance of the media groups, concerned plans of government departments, achievements, services provided and ensure that institutional messages targets specific concerned groups.
This category also aims to create a smooth process for the coordination of media messages to government bodies to achieve the overall objectives of the strategic plan of the government and the development of internal and external communication channels, which ensures the highest transparency and accuracy of information based on world-class practices in government communications and the development of an integrated system for managing crisis communications in coordination with all the relevant parties: guaranteeing the delivery of information to the relevant target groups in an accurate and timely manner.
DEWA has received many awards for its communications, such as the award for Joint Government Project in the Dubai Government Excellence Program in 2009. DEWA also was honoured by Dubai Government Excellence Programme for organising Earth Hour in 2015.
Creative Idea Award (Intelligent Fire System Separation from Low Voltage)
DEWA received the Creative Idea Award at the Dubai Awards for Excellence in Government – 2016 for its Intelligent Fire System Separation from Low Voltage. It is an idea to put out fires in substations by using an intelligent sensory system, which was invented and designed by DEWA employees. The system works through heat-sensitive cables that notifies engineers about increasing temperatures, enabling them to take necessary measures to avoid the occurrence of fires.
The idea team was chaired by Matar Suhail Salem Al Mehairi, VP of Distribution Asset Management at DEWA and included Islam Fakhri Mohammed AbuHamda, Assistant Manager of Asset Management, Workshops and Equipment, Usama Omar Mohamed Radwan, First Network Maintenance Engineer (Low Voltage) and Awad Mahmoud Ibrahim AlJawawdeh, Deputy Manager of the Distribution Workshop.
One advantage of this system is that it maintains the assets and the property of DEWA by providing an intelligent system that provides early information about malfunctions, thereby avoiding a fire in the substation. The system is equipped with terminals to forecast fire incidents with almost 100% accuracy. This contributes to the sustainability of the power supply and reduces interruptions to achieve happiness and customer satisfaction. This idea has contributed to the financial savings of over AED 1 million for DEWA.
To date, the system is being patented as the first-of-its-kind in the world. It is developed in phases by adding warning systems to demonstrate the urgency of preventive maintenance and the ability to determine the fire source within or outside the station, with touch and control software systems to facilitate smooth operation and surveillance for the dissemination of the system on all stations. DEWA has won the Best Employee Idea of the Year award for this idea during Ideas.Germany 2015. In addition, it also won the Idea of the Year award at the Ideas.UK conference in 2014.
Distinguished Employee in Technical & Engineering
Maryam Khamis Salmin Saqer, Deputy Manager of Transmission Equipment Asset Management at DEWA, received the Distinguished Employee in Technical & Engineering at the Dubai Government Excellence Awards. Joining DEWA in July 2007, Mariam’s role includes the functional tasks of technical analysis of transport of equipment according to the strategy of maintenance-oriented reliability, the application of the requirements of global asset management specifications in the power transmission sector, and the design and automation of key processes in the SAP system.
Mariam noted that, in addition to God’s support, the factors that contributed in her winning the award are her love for her work and her permanent quest to enhance her capabilities and gain new experiences, in addition to her commitment, perseverance, diligence and determination to win. She expressed her pride and happiness in winning the award and thanked the leadership of the commission for their unlimited support in providing a stimulating environment to excel and succeed.
Unknown Soldier
Pakistani driver, Mir Janan Juma Ghool, won the Unknown Soldier Award at the 2016 Dubai Awards for Excellence in Government. Mir joined DEWA in 1977 as an Assistant and moved to the Department of Mechanics of Gas Turbines after nearly 15 years. Currently, he is a heavy transport driver, a job he took 8 years ago. Mir is very happy with this honour and shook hands with HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. He also expressed his delight in working at DEWA and thanked its leadership team, which provides its employees with a happy and stimulating work environment that helps them progress in their chosen careers.
Internal Excellence Ceremony
HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer honoured the staff for receiving awards at the 19th Dubai Government Excellence Awards and celebrated the achievement with his management team. He toured DEWA’s sectors and sections to meet the staff, praising their efforts that have contributed to this achievement as well as encouraged them to pursue excellence to achieve more accomplishments at various levels. Al Tayer also met with DEWA’s Excellence team and commended them for their efforts.
For their part, DEWA staff congratulated Al Tayer for the outstanding honour this year, emphasising the unlimited support that he has provided to everyone had a significant impact in motivating employees to excel and achieve remarkable results. Sectors and sections of DEWA participated in the festivities with the distribution of roses and cakes.
Fourth Generation of Standards of Excellence
During the distribution of awards at the 19th Dubai Government Excellence Award, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum directed Dubai Government’s departments to apply the fourth generation of standards of excellence system. Al Tayer assured DEWA’s readiness to apply and implement the fourth generation for government excellence system, to improve government work on innovative standards based on the results that focuses on excellence in government services across three main segments: achieving the vision, innovation and enablers to achieve the highest satisfaction rates and people's happiness.
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