Amcham pushes to revolutionise govt services, e-payments

THE AMERICAN Chamber of Commerce of TT (Amcham), together with specialists in their respective fields, are once again calling for Government and the private sector to take advantage of the benefits offered by taking all possible services online.

Amcham, a business lobby group, has encouraged Government to embrace a full transformation of its services to a digitally-enabled system for a number of years. Three consistent recommendations made by Amcham have been the implementation of a unique national identification number (UNI); the acceleration of the adoption of electronic payments for government services, and the acceptance of digital signatures.

The target is greater efficiency, improved services, better accessibility of public services and more transparency and accountability within government.

Giving a feature address to a virtual audience, last month, Amcham CEO Nirad Tewarie said, "We have been talking about these things for too long while our ease of doing business has been falling. Sure, there are a million reasons we can hide behind to say 'why?' but let's be the people who say, 'why not?' and then go make it happen."

Tewarie complimented Government for implementing e-payment for some services, such as payment of taxes at the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) and the necessity of a UNI number. Tewarie noted, however, that companies are unable to pay their quarterly taxes online despite the BIR being able to facilitate online payments for personal income tax. In its first phase document, launched last month, the Roadmap to Recovery team has suggested an e-identification for all citizens.

Vashti Maharaj, director of legal services at the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs, said recent amendments to various laws to digitise public services at the courts, Registrar General's Department and Intellectual Property Office, will give momentum to and create a crescendo effect across government services.

"The amendments to recent laws to digitise certain government services will lay the foundation for other dynamic and innovative initiatives, such as the use of a unique personal identification number across government to access services,” Maharaj said, adding that the launch of the national e-money policy “will pave the way for the use of digital wallets and encourage the development of a burgeoning fintech economy within TT.”

Meanwhile, former chairman of the e-Business Roundtable and CEO of Info Link Services Glynis Alexander-Tam says a common sense approach is required for accelerating Government’s ICT plan, particularly with the impact of covid19. She argued the digitisation approach must be "collaborative and should not reinvent the wheel on what already exists within the private sector."

"There are large companies that have digitised a lot of their services across the board," said Alexander-Tam.

"Government should, in fact, be engaging private sector companies to see what has been done before and where information can be leveraged, and partnerships developed to push some of that digitisation process into the market space."

CEO of iGovTT Kirk Henry said the current environment of a global pandemic underscores the need to move services online by preparing the supporting infrastructure in a sustainable and secure manner.

iGovTT is mandated is to provide the Government with ICT consulting and support services for its ministries, departments, divisions and agencies.

"This revolves around managing risk associated with implementation to ensure availability of the system; to ensure accuracy in terms of processing the data that is captured, the agility to quickly respond and roll-out solutions, and finally, accessibility," he said.

"We want to ensure the systems and the services that we digitise, provide and present (online) is handled in such a way that the right people have access to it and we are always mindful of the bad actors who are attempting to subvert the process."