Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley be­lieves the new Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and a dri­ve to­wards tech­nol­o­gy will cre­ate new op­por­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness­es. He spoke about the im­por­tance of us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to trans­form the pub­lic ser­vice and the econ­o­my in an in­ter­view last Thurs­day on Brighter Morn­ing with Bhoe Live, host­ed by Dr Bhoe Tewarie on Mul­ti­Cul­tur­al Tele­vi­sion (MCTV) and U97.5FM.

Days ear­li­er, Dr Row­ley had an­nounced the cre­ation of a ded­i­cat­ed Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion—a port­fo­lio pre­vi­ous­ly part of a min­istry that al­so in­clud­ed Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion—and put Has­sel Bac­chus at the helm.

How­ev­er, the need for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion has been a talk­ing point for some time. At a press con­fer­ence in Ju­ly 2020, the Prime Min­is­ter had fore­cast that T&T would be a dig­i­tal na­tion by 2022.

That ob­jec­tive has be­come more ur­gent with the pan­dem­ic, as work­ing from home has un­der­scored the need for greater tech­nol­o­gy.

In the in­ter­view with Tewarie, the Prime Min­is­ter said the new Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion was not set up “by vapse,” but with the un­der­stand­ing that things have to be done dif­fer­ent­ly.

“Nine months lat­er, or al­most a year lat­er, we now have a full-fledged Min­istry of Dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion. That is say­ing to the coun­try that we have to dig­i­talise our op­er­a­tions, the pub­lic ser­vice, and the pri­vate sec­tor. The very na­ture of that has changed.

“If things go the way we are plan­ning it, op­por­tu­ni­ties are aris­ing that were not there be­fore. Op­por­tu­ni­ties to restart busi­ness­es that were ham­pered or to have new busi­ness­es es­tab­lished as if the niche is there we ex­pect the en­tre­pre­neur­ial dri­ve to fill those nich­es.”

Dr Row­ley said dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion will al­so trans­form the lives of or­di­nary peo­ple.

“Once we start to use dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy in our busi­ness­es and dai­ly lives, this coun­try will change in a fun­da­men­tal way. It opens se­ri­ous doors for young peo­ple who are the dri­vers of this new era. It al­so calls for old­er busi­ness­es to do busi­ness dif­fer­ent­ly. We are com­ing back bet­ter,” he said.

Dr Row­ley added that Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Min­istry will dri­ve oth­er min­istries, but a new cul­ture must be cre­at­ed be­cause in the same way there is vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy there will be digi­ti­sa­tion hes­i­tan­cy. To get around this, em­ploy­ees in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors must be trained to use the new tech­nol­o­gy, he said.

What Dr Row­ley said mir­rored the views of oth­er ex­perts.

For­mer pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion min­is­ter Dr Rudrawa­tee Nan Go­sine-Ram­goolam, who now lec­tures at the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness, said tech­nol­o­gy can trans­form the pub­lic ser­vice and make it more ef­fi­cient.

In­stead of be­ing a bur­den to the Trea­sury, pub­lic ser­vants work­ing from home dur­ing the lock­down can be looked at as a new stage in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy for the coun­try, she said.

“Pub­lic sec­tor work­er needs to be trained to work with the tech­nol­o­gy at home. Once it is done prop­er­ly it will be an as­set to the Gov­ern­ment, coun­try, and the em­ploy­ee,” Go­sine-Ram­goolam said.

COVID-19 has sim­ply fast-for­ward­ed the process of work­ing and do­ing busi­ness on­line as Gov­ern­ment had been talk­ing about iGovTT for many years, she point­ed out. The pan­dem­ic was a “su­per jolt” to the world of work and now the coun­try and the world have been forced to adopt digi­ti­sa­tion, which means con­vert­ing from ana­log to dig­i­tal.

Go­sine-Ram­goolam said em­ploy­ers now have to de­vel­op work prac­tices where em­ploy­ees can work from home dur­ing this pan­dem­ic or any oth­ers in the fu­ture. She be­lieves more than 90 per cent of the pub­lic’s ad­min­is­tra­tive work can be done on­line.

“My opin­ion is that the em­ploy­er can get more pro­duc­tiv­i­ty from home. Once the sys­tem is set up prop­er­ly, they will know if the man­ag­er has left their com­put­er for 15 min­utes. So man­agers can man­age more ef­fec­tive­ly with tech­nol­o­gy,” she ex­plained.

The next step is for the Gov­ern­ment to train pub­lic sec­tor work­ers to work from home so that an em­ploy­ee “does not need to buy new bags, work clothes, shoes, and oth­er ac­ces­sories, nei­ther do they have to spend hours in traf­fic every day.”

Go­sine-Ram­goolam be­lieves the new nor­mal will be a hy­brid sys­tem of work­ing from home and at work­places.