Licensing Division has some way to go

Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan promised last week that the two customised buses to be deployed as mobile licensing offices will begin operations soon.

The buses, ordered at a cost of $2 million, were first announced in July and their arrival promised within three months, so that project is already running late.

The mobile service is part of the Licensing Division's U-Turn System, a project plan that won an IDB President's Award for Innovation in the Public Sector.

The buses will regularly visit remote villages from Toco to Matelot and travel to distant areas of Tobago at least once a week.

Mr Sinanan has been pushing for a long-overdue overhaul and "clean-up" of the in-person intensive operations of the Licensing Division since October 2019, but there's a long way to go. What’s more, it’s trying to catch up from way behind, having long been notorious for its old-time practices and procedures. Talk of “computerising” its operations, as it was originally referred to, went on for decades with no action in sight.

Demand for service is high. When licensing offices reopened on June 1 after lockdown closures on March 30, driver's permit transactions more than doubled to 22,281 over the June-July business period.

Despite the opening of a new branch in Guaico and an effort to put more of the office's business online, the Licensing Office has not been a model of efficiency under covid19 restrictions.

Letters to Newsday and social-media users complain about lapses in social-distancing requirements at these offices, and the crush of drivers lining up for service has not inspired public confidence in the promised transformation.

It took the remarkable story of a man who bought a typewriter to facilitate getting his taxi badge in June to push the division to complete an element in its digitalisation that would eliminate the need for that archaic work process.

Self-service options allowing for debit and credit card payments that Mr Sinanan promised in March are yet to become a significant part of operations.

The U-Turn system won't be a success until it is fully and usefully online.

There is, according to the Transport Minister, "a demand for accurate data" for the new system, but he has not explained how that is going to happen.

Mr Sinanan must also be aware that much of the infamous corruption at the Licensing Division is enabled by chaotic record-keeping and lack of transparency in its operations. There will be resistance to any effort to change that.

Online systems that make it easier for the division's customers to submit and verify information that it needs for the successful digitalisation of its operations must become a cornerstone of its business.

The Licensing Division has taken incremental steps forward – but those changes must go deeper than an efficient digital appointment system and downloadable forms.