Where are the digital transformation specifics?

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BitDepth#1306

IF THERE had been even one major development resulting from the Government's plan to demonstrate digital transformation, it would have been trumpeted from the rooftops.

Kirk Henry, CEO of iGovTT, the state agency responsible for advising on ICT execution, has resigned, noting it first on his Linked-In profile a month ago and more publicly during a recent conversation with the Internet Society of TT (ISOC-TT).

This follows other senior-level resignations at the International Financial Centre, which had championed financial technology (FinTech) for much of 2019 and 2020. Those departures came after local FinTech company, WiPay, announced that it was relocating its headquarters to Jamaica.

"Demand," WiPay's Aldwyn Wayne told Anthony Wilson in a December interview, "is what is going to drive us to have our base of operation in a specific market."

That's already happened and Jamaica embraced WiPay's digital cash fulfilment capabilities during extended covid19 lockdowns.

Henry's ISOC-TT talk sounded like an upbeat exit interview, as he listed the work that iGovTT had done during the pandemic.

In March 2020, the state agency began scenario planning under Henry's leadership, completed the implementation of an online payment system for the Attorney General's office, then created a meetings solution for Cabinet and provided training for its members in its use.

Those efforts were saluted by National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds at a meeting of the Public Accounts (Enterprises) Committee on April 7.

But responding to questions about institutional challenges by committee vice-chairman Rushton Paray, Henry said, "We propose standards, we contribute.

"The application of some of our recommendations – because it is not set as policy – is sub-optimal."

This is at the heart of the running failure of iGovTT, problematically positioned as a state-appointed knowledge resource and adviser that every government agency is free to ignore completely.

The TT oil and gas sector was led by a group of like-minded, goal-focused individuals who enjoyed the demonstrated support of the political leadership. It was their way or the highway.

There is no equivalent drive to execution in TT public sector ICT development.

In August 2020, Hassel Bacchus was appointed a senator and Minister in the Ministry of Public Administration, which added "and Digital Transformation" to its name for the occasion.

A year later, the headline story on digitalisation is the scanning of 100,000 documents at Town and Country Planning (https://bit.ly/3zr5zxo).

In an interview in June with Newsday (https://bit.ly/3wEIc1m), Bacchus indulged in the kind of podium-speak generalities that infest official responses to questions about digital transformation.

In the grip of a pandemic that challenged the public health system, neither iGovTT nor the MPADT can point to a single initiative that brought ICT effectively to bear on that crisis.

The iGovTT e-appointment web app briefly listed the ERHA, but the only link now is to the Registrar General.

If there was ever a time to push for a cohesive digital network for secure transfer of patient case records between RHAs and IP-enabled communication, this was it.

"Everyone talks about Estonia," Kirk Henry said at the ISOC-TT meeting, "but we are where we are. We are at level one."

Talking about transformation won't get us to level two. That will take co-ordinated, specific action championed from the very top of the governance structure.

The Prime Minister has already, in the wake of last week's vaccination debacle, acknowledged his role as
primus inter pares and stepped up to take the blame for that debacle.

Will he also take responsibility for the collective and comprehensive failures of digital transformation, more than a year into the challenge that covid19 offered this country's public sector ICT capacity?

Mark Lyndersay is the editor of technewstt.com. An expanded version of this column can be found there