The Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Ha­ji Kaz­im Ho­sein, host­ed a meet­ing to chart the way for­ward in the Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

Present at the meet­ing were Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Has­sel Bac­chus; Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Ho­n­ourable Symon De No­bri­ga; Sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma–Lee-Sing; Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Ms. Des­dra Bas­combe; Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Claudelle McKel­lar; and all May­ors and Chair­men of the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. Al­so present vir­tu­al­ly were the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cers of the cor­po­ra­tions.

In his wel­come re­marks, Min­is­ter Ho­sein re­flect­ed on the im­por­tance of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion with­in the sec­tor and more­over this trans­for­ma­tion would fur­ther im­prove the de­liv­ery of ser­vices as the min­istry works to­wards lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Sen­a­tor Leza­ma Lee-Sing em­pha­sised the need to strength­en na­tion­al agen­cies through dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, high­light­ing that the place to start was at the lo­cal gov­ern­ment lev­el, liken­ing the coun­try to the hu­man body and ex­press­ing that lo­cal gov­ern­ment would be the veins through which the lifeblood was de­liv­ered.

Min­is­ter Bac­chus ex­pressed his great en­thu­si­asm and plea­sure at be­ing present, in­di­cat­ing that he jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have this very per­ti­nent meet­ing as Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form was soon to come. He coined his Min­istry’s de­f­i­n­i­tion of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion as: “A new way to or­ga­nize end to end de­liv­ery of goods and ser­vices to cus­tomers us­ing ap­pro­pri­ate dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy”.

Min­is­ter Bac­chus al­so pledged to work in an All of Gov­ern­ment ap­proach to dig­i­tal­ly trans­form gov­ern­ment ser­vices, in­di­cat­ing that this process is not new and some el­e­ments have al­ready un­der­gone change. He en­cour­aged the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to dig­i­tize and as­sured them that they would still own their da­ta.

In clos­ing the meet­ing, Min­is­ter Ho­sein ad­dressed all the con­cerns of the may­ors and chair­men and as­sured that the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion would not be leav­ing any­one be­hind.

Both Min­is­ter Ho­sein and Min­is­ter Bac­chus agreed that there would be a se­ries of meet­ings with the May­ors and Chair­men, in their own spaces, to as­cer­tain their needs, both com­mon and unique. In these meet­ings, at each of the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, their process­es and func­tions will be ob­served, and dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy would be ap­plied on top of those.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Ho­n­ourable Symon De No­bri­ga pledged his sup­port of the ini­tia­tive through gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Sen­a­tor Ho­sein com­mend­ed the May­ors, Chair­men and CEOs for their sup­port as the Min­istry con­tin­ues to ex­e­cute its man­date while ob­serv­ing our mot­to, “Putting Peo­ple First”.