e-Governance is the Way to Go!

Kevin Bernard

Going digital is the new direction that the Government of Belize plans on taking. It is expected that this administration will introduce significant changes during their five-year mandate. The Minister of Youth Sports and e-Governance is tasked to increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness in delivering public services. The work began last week with an e-Governance Task Force appointment comprised of public and private sector stakeholders. Jose Urbina and Juan Carlos Namis co-chair the Taskforce. According to Minister Kevin Bernard, the aim is to create an online platform where a range of public services can be provided using a national identification system.

Kevin Bernard, Minister of e-Governance

“You will notice that the taskforce is made up of people from various backgrounds and ministries and other areas in the private sector where we can create that linkage and the main purpose of this is to see where we’re going to start, where other ministries, including the private sector, can benefit from what we want to do in terms of achieving e-governance in this country.  When you look at the experiences in Estonia and other countries in the digital services, it reduces the lot of red tape.  It reduces the time wasted on people having to fill out manual documents to apply for a simple passport for example, to apply for a land document, to apply for your birth paper.  You know, we have right now where you use your social security [card] for this, you use your voter’s ID for the other, you use your driver’s license for the other.  The goal is to at this point develop a national ID which will link everything in this country: your medical records, your birth records, you can even communicate with those services outside of the public sector, including like your banking and so forth.”