Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers. Today we will be discussing a very interesting topic. It's the first time it will be discussed in such a forum and I'm referring here to the Digital Government Services Platform. This platform, as you will hear later, is really a deliberate effort by the Government of St. Lucia to create an evolution in the way things are done here, introducing technology. And with me is Mr. Marlon Nassos, who is the Acting Director in the Division of Public Sector Modernization. Next to him is Mr. Mrs. Sheila Inbet, who is the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Department of the Public Service and next to her is Mrs. Skeeter Gibbs, who is the Acting Chief Transport Officer. Hello. We want to start off with Mr. Nassos, first of all. Explain to us what really is this new platform. Okay, thank you, Jolita. Well, as part of Government's Digital Transformation Program, we've embarked on an ICT Evolution project, which seeks to outline a roadmap for the implementation of Government Services Online. This project will facilitate and accelerate Government's e-government agenda. And it seeks to connect the people where we empower a citizenry to collaborate and to interface an interactive Government on their terms, to connect the businesses by enabling information sharing with the private sector and Government, and also to connect ministries and agencies to improve on interagency collaboration and to allow for data sharing among those various agencies. This Digital Transformation Program is not just about the adoption of new technologies, but focuses on the entire spectrum of change management, looking at organizational structures, how they really, really find and change to provide better service, to improve the services to the public. Also looking at our Government's frameworks, how we put the right persons in the right places to ensure that we provide the services in an accurate manner, and also to really find the processes, and very crucially look at how we change the culture within the public sector, within the Government to be able to provide those services to the public. Now undoubtedly, this new platform is very expansive, and of course we'll be hearing a lot about it. This discussion is just one of many to come and stream, but what, in what way will it impact, given the business sector, ordinary drivers, what are the overarching objectives? And well the overarching objective of the project is to provide the public service, to provide these public services to the public in a real time manner, so that persons can interface with Government on their terms, you know, within the times that are convenient to them. Also, we want to create a data driven culture within the public service, that persons will be able to review what has been done internally, and be able to assimilate that data for the public when they require, obviously it will require us implementing new technologies, new IT systems as we go forward. Also, we want to strengthen Government's efficiencies to create more economic value, and cultural value for solutions, and this is a very critical aspect of it as well, because with this digital Government platform, there will be several value added services that the Government can now engage the private sector to provide support to this Government initiative, and have more collaboration with the private sector as we move along. It also will seek to support the supply quality and uptake of the digital Government process, in the sense that we will be looking at business process re-engineering, process optimization, the Government will also be looking at the improvement in its infrastructure, so that these online services can be accessed by the public. So we have implemented the CASI project, which seeks to connect all of Government buildings, all of Government infrastructure, so that we could interconnect all of the various agencies, for example. The Government has also implemented the GI-Net project, which provides a wireless backbone across the island, and high Wi-Fi hotspots in critical areas to facilitate access to Government services using the Wi-Fi technology that is more or less all over the country. And also the digitization, which will allow us to really have all of these services in an electronic form that the citizens can interface with Government. Okay, I just want to add that, of course, Government services online are not entirely new to St. Lucia, but I suspect this platform is going to take several notches higher. Now, the Department of Public Service, I like to refer to as the nerve center of the public service. Mrs. Embat, how is that platform going to engage all ministries and departments, as I understand it transcends the public service? Okay, thank you, Julia. With the Digital Government Services Platform, 153 services will be offered online across eight agencies within the next 18 to 24 months. As a result of that, the Department of Public Sector Modernization, during the initiation phase, met with a number of Government agencies to assess the services being offered, and to determine which of these services can be offered online. So we have already started the process of engaging all Government agencies in the process. They also conducted surveys to get an indication of the responsiveness to this initiative, and to ascertain whether persons would like Government services to be offered online. At this time, while we focus on the renewal of driver's licenses, this service will impact every single Government agency. I'm not sure if you are aware, but we have already engaged the Department of Justice as it relates to the electronic records of vital records, electronic documentation of vital records, and that by mean birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death certificates. And this is all with the intention of providing that service online where citizens can apply for these vital documents and pay for them online. Okay, so you've touched on the first phase of the project, and critically to that first phase is the renewal and duplicates of driver's licenses, and that's where Mrs. Gibbs come in. As Acting Chief Transport Officer, what does that entail? Thank you, Julia. When the first phase of the Digital Government project is launched on January 3, 2020, the timeliness and efficiency of processing of driver's licenses will improve significantly. So customers will no longer have the long wait and to take the long lines that they do at the Department presently, and the waiting time for collection will also be shortened, hopefully between five to ten days. I'm sure drivers will be quite happy to hear that, considering what happens there presently. Yes. So the first phase in the process would be for drivers and customers to register online to be able to access the platform. And once they have registered online, they would be able to interface with the Digital Government system to apply for their duplicate licenses and their renewals. In the case of the duplicate licenses, customers will be required to indicate the reason that they're applying for duplicate license. If they have lost their driver's license, they would be required to upload a letter from the Justice of the Peace so that they could support that application. If the license was stolen, they would be required to upload a police certificate or a police report. And if their license got damaged for any reason, they would be required to upload an image or photocop an image, sorry, or copy of that damage license. In the case of renewals, they would enter their current driver's license number into the system, and then the system would, from the back end, upload the existing data and details on that customer so they could proceed with their application. With the Digital Government system, if the customer is not yet ready to process their application, they would be able to save that application and come back to it later and then to submit it. Okay, very interesting. And I suspect we'd want to continue after the break. I've been given a cue that we are due for a break. We will return after the break. Just think about the glass. When you have been difficult to use someone, you ask your friends for advice to help you to deal with your problems. But wouldn't you prefer getting advice from a professional counselor? I hope you're not one of those who think counseling is the best way to help you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope we are not one of those who think counseling is for crazy people. Um! which is offering six free counseling sessions for government employees. Eglacia, why don't you take advantage of it? Really? It's free?  Free counseling. But Eglacia, well, who is there counseling, sir? Call the EAP unit at 468-2269. EAP works, let it work for you. Welcome back. Just before the break, we were discussing, of course, Ms. Gibbs, the whole process of applying for a renewal and duplicate license under the new DigiGov services platform. Perhaps we want to continue with that? Yes. So with the new digital government system, customers will also be able to edit their information whether it be a name change or a change in their address. Whether they would be required to upload a supporting documentation to support that change in order for the system to accept it. After they're done with this process, then they may choose to submit their application, at which point the system will prompt them to select a mode of payment. Now, under the digital government system, customers could either pay online with their credit card or debit card, or they could select an over-the-counter payment option, in which case the system would generate a bill ID. And the customer would take this information, the bill ID, and would be able to visit the transport department to pay over-the-counter. Alternatively, the customer could also pay at any government department where the government of the luxury seating system is installed. So with the bill ID, they would be able to pay at any such location. I want to go back to Mr. Narciss. We want to talk a little about the digital transformation. What exactly does that entail? For the purposes of this project, digital transformation in the public sector refers to how government harnesses the technology to provide services to the public. And this is very critical because when we look at all of the journey that government has taken in the past few years, there are several systems as well as infrastructural initiatives that have taken place. And so we think at this point in time it is a right time for the government to take that next step in this transformation process where it will now be able to provide services to the public in real-time, online, at the public's convenience and the customer's convenience. That's very critical as well. We want to ensure that an engaging government is no longer a hassle-free interaction, but using technologies, using the internet government will be able to then provide these opportunities for interaction, also for engagement, for advocacy, for democracy, so that we could continue to engage the society and develop our knowledge society as we move forward. So maybe I should ask you, talking about engagement, how does the department intend to engage citizens? Okay, well as part of this initiative we had an initiation-feased component of the project which focused, well one of the major components of that would be a change management framework for user adoption and it focuses on two years. One on the public as well as on the user of the system on the inside who would be actually in the back end providing that service. So on the public side of things, this panel discussion is actually the first leg of a series of panel discussions that we want to undertake in order for us to engage the public to inform the public of what the government is doing, but also through surveys and questionnaires. We did undertake a series of surveys at the transport department just to try and get an idea from the public what were their thoughts on the current situation where they access government services in order to renew their driver's license and register their vehicles. And we got some very, very good results from that survey. Obviously, persons are not really happy with the system as it is now and this is one of the reasons why the government has decided to prioritize this first initiative as food implementation of the system at the transport department. So we noticed that at least 70% of the respondents to our survey indicated that they would be willing and excited to engage the government online. While the willingness is there, we know that change is not always easily embraced and there will be fears, there will be doubts and understandably so, how is the department ensuring that the concerns about persons' personal information, confidentiality are taken care of? Actually, that was also one of the questions in our survey and we, persons indicated that they would be, they are concerned about the ability of government to be able to protect their data both from a system side as well as from the legal perspective. So we've attempted to alleviate the fears of the public in two ways, one, we've gone ahead and reviewed a lot of the legislation that is in place currently which speaks to e-government, e-commerce and online payments and we've decided to do two main things, one, for the purposes of the transport department, for example, there is a transport regulations, there is a terminology in the legal fraternity called an omnibus legislation which modestly we're covering several areas of the regulations that govern the transport department so we're looking to put that in place. Also, on the data side for data and privacy protection there is a data and privacy act which was passed in 2011, however it has not been effective. So in discussions with the attorney general's chambers as well as with the consultant to our project we've agreed that the data and privacy protection, some clauses of that protection would be effective in time for the transport launch. The other one as well is the computer misuse bill, sorry, act, it was also passed in 2011 and this is currently enforced in St. Lucia so that also provides protection for the public in going online and putting the information online. From a system perspective as well the system would be... there would be two factor authentication once the national authentication framework is implemented. However, for the purpose of this first launch of the transport system users would have to register and then they would be given a... they would be able to put in the username and password to protect their profile online. If you would allow me Madam Chair I just want to also speak to one other aspect of the digital transformation initiative which is with digital transformation also comes digital citizenship.  I want to go a step further to say that for the purposes of our project we think that we want the digital citizen or digital solution to be that person who uses information technology who uses the internet in a responsible manner to engage society and government. And this is very key. And one of the ways that we're going to go down we're going to be implementing that to engage persons and to allow them to interface in the system is through a project at the civil status registry. I think Miss Imber alluded to it earlier where every St. Lucia resident would be what is given in multiple society in which they would be able to interface with the system and interact with the system. So that would be the start of every solution or resident having a digital profile or an e-profile on the system to allow them to interface with the government. Okay, so you just made it in time for our second break. We want to thank you for watching issues and answers. Please stay tuned. On the other side of the break we are going to speak to the section of society which prefers not to use the online system and of course the department caters for them as well. The world's climate is changing and that affects all of us. Storms are becoming increasingly intense. Periods of intense drought and heavy rain stress farm animals and destroy our crops. Higher average ocean temperatures kill our coral reefs and change our territory patterns of fish. St. Lucia contributes only 0.0015% of global greenhouse gas emissions but is doing its part along with countries around the world to reduce the emissions that are warming our world and changing our climate. These efforts are called motivation but decades of emissions have already changed the climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today will increase average global temperatures even more. We need to adapt. That is do everything we can to prepare for and respond to the actual and expected negative effects of climate change and everyone has a role to play. We need to protect our crops. Build homes that withstand storms and keep our drains and waterways free of garbage to help us recover or bounce back from climatic events. Learn more about the Government of St. Lucia's National Adaptation Plan and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your fellow St. Lucia's. Welcome back. Thanks for staying tuned. We are discussing the new DHGov platform phase one of that project which entails the renewal and duplicates of driver's licenses. Mrs. Inbert, what are some of the benefits of that system? With the implementation of the Digital Government Services Platform we are expected to realize the benefits both for the Government as well as the citizens. Mr. Nasis touched on some of the benefits of the Government as it relates to improving service delivery, business process, re-engineering a central repository for all electronic records and he mentioned the initiative at the Department of Justice but I would like to focus more on the benefits to the citizens and we are looking at convenience. As a citizen one would be able to apply or renew for a driver's license in the comfort of their home through the mobile device and as such it means that you could do it anywhere at any point in time. Yes you can. So we looking at this project we looked at some of the main benefits to the citizens and convenience was one of the major benefits as it relates to you would be aware that at Transport Division there are long lines and this in itself adds to transportation cost and persons have to travel long distances so we are looking at this being cost effective as well as increasing efficiency Mrs. Gibbs mentioned that the system you enter your information in the system and that the system can provide notifications to you at any point in time so you could just log on to the system and you would be able to know the status of your application. That in itself is a major benefit in that you would not have to report to the Transport Division whether it be in castries or viewfort to collect a driver's license and be told that it is not ready and we are aware that these are some of the major issues we are faced with right now what the system also does is that it can allow you to change your place of collection so if you decided at the beginning that your collection would have been in castries and for some reason you would like to change your point of collection you can change that to viewfort again going back to convenience so these are some of the major benefits that the platform is supposed to provide okay so we are quickly running out of time but we want to get as much as we can so Mr. Nasiz let's speak to those persons who prefer not to use the online system how will the Ministry cater for those persons? What we have also included in the process flow for the system is for persons who are unbanked or prefer to continue to interfacing government using cash we actually have two options one you could stay home again in your convenience and apply for that service Ms. Gibbs also alluded to that that individual would then get a service or bill ID which can be emailed to them or sent to them via WhatsApp and that person could then walk into the transport division to make the payment online where the system would then register that bill ID that came to them through WhatsApp on email further we are also going to be implementing service agents with the system so if again that individual cannot even interfacing for computer but needs to come to transport there will be service agents at the transport division who then allow them or facilitate and assist them in applying for the service and accessing the service at the department of transport and roll out time? Just to add to what Mr. Nasiz has indicated in the future in coming phases of the project customers will also have the option of visiting a service agent a service center in their communities in subsequent phases so they wouldn't even have to leave their community to access the renewal or duplicate service so they would be able to do so right in their communities. Let's talk about the roll out phase again roll out date, implementation Right so the transport services for driver's license renewal and duplicate is scheduled for January 3rd, 2020 in addition to the service bureaus that Mr. Gives spoke about we also will be engaging some of our other local businesses that provide those type of payment conveniences to the public so for example we have had discussions with short pay as well and the possibility of using those short pay outlets in the subsequent phases to allow persons to actually come in to make the payment for the service that they have access on the government platform so you know it's going to be a really integrated platform and it speaks again to the value added services that I spoke about where we're going to engage the private sector to be able to so that they can contribute as well as to allow the public that convenience in accessing the government services Okay but just before we end our very interesting discussion I'm sure the drivers are not all drivers I'm sure they're going to embrace this new system and of course you spoke to the objectives and the benefits of that system but as the champion of this initiative of course your division is spearheading perhaps you have some final words Yes I just wanted to take this opportunity to to inform solutions that the government of San Lucia is working very hard at providing getting this digital transformation initiative off the ground we see the transport division as a major stepping stone and the opportunity for us to more or less give some more teeth to the project and to as a concept going forward we're hoping that we get the support from the public and the patients of the public as we implement this project over time there are several agencies that are going to be impacted apart from the transport division we're looking at the Ministry of Health the department of of sustainable development we have customs we have so there are several aspects of this project over time and several agencies that would be implanted and would be able to benefit from the system so again the government's intention is not to focus on the citizen but also the business environment to catalyze trade facilitation as well which is a major component of the project in the upcoming phases going forward so we look forward to engaging the public further as I said we have a very pointed PR strategy and they will be hearing a lot more about the project in the coming months well said anybody else would like to add I will dispose right just as a final point I would just like to ask for the public's patience with the transport department as we work to improve our services improve the timeliness and efficiency of our services and I just want to assure them that the length of time to get the driver's license will reduce significantly by January 2020 well this is all our time on issues and answers I want to thank you for joining me here today of course there will be other such appearances in this on this medium and as we seek to educate you and inform you on the new digital platform thanks for watching