What happened to e-vaccination certificate?

The explanations offered by Minister of Digital Transformation Hassel Bacchus for the delays in creating a local e-vaccination certificate are shaky at best and confusing at their worst.

On October 1 last year, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh was reported as saying these certificates, using QR codes – which are required, for instance, to check on overseas airlines in advance – would be available in six-eight weeks.

Six months later, no such codes have been issued.

Mr Bacchus blamed the delay on two issues: security vulnerabilities and the source-logging of vaccination information.

When he took up his ministerial role, the country was under covid lockdown, and as a new minister in an equally new ministry, his first mission should have been to put his stamp on a digital transformation project that would resolve a nationally important issue.

When it was announced that vaccinations would be given to first responders, Mr Bacchus had an opportunity to assemble a team and a system to manage the related data.

The emphasis should have been on ease of input, accuracy and verification of information, a secure chain of custody for personally identifiable information (PII), policies on data management, including local storage, and a timeline for the project.

Instead, the public is now hearing from him that: "The specific software and hardware vendors have provided (security) fixes," and that information in the database “system” used to record vaccinations needed to be cleared of "inconsistencies."

The first record of vaccinations, managed by the Health Ministry, was an appallingly laborious manual process, creating boxes of paperwork.

Mr Bacchus, who has earnestly promised his ministry would emphasise the use of local resources and developers, instead accepted "free" project work from Crimson Logic of Singapore and the UK's Riomed.

Both companies have an established presence in TT. Riomed implemented a patient management system at the Point Fortin Hospital in February 2021; Crimson Logic built the TT e-Biz business software system.

Beyond the snubbing of the local developer community, the public is being asked to accept that this arrangement won't influence the business relationship between these companies and the government in the future. Was this arrangement, which constitutes a gift to the government, formally contracted under established rules for the donation of services?

In the most dire days of the pandemic, it was clear that acquiring vaccines, even without cost, required established agreements according to international guidelines for distributing a lifesaving resource. Contractual agreements, both declared and secret, were an aspect of vaccine distribution that attracted criticism and concern.

The gathering, management and successful use of vaccination data in reality demanded transparent policy declarations and an effecive plan for execution.

Given the prolonged and continuing absence of an e-vaccine certificate, it's clear that despite the generosity of Crimson Logic and Riomed, the Digital Transformation Ministry has got exactly what it paid for.