If you've ever been to Belmopan to try and get a land document or record, you'll know how infuriating and futile the process can be. But while the bureaucracy is stifling, the promise of e-government is on the horizon. Or so they say. That "they" is the Office of Governance and it has brought in two consultants to talk about the importance of an ICT Policy - that's tech talk for information communication technology. David Little of PSTG Consulting, a private IT firm in Canada and the Commonwealth Secretariat's Devindra Ramanrine are in Belize to see how ready we are for e-government. Little says it's not a question of "if," but when.
David Little, PSTG Consulting
"There is no doubt that a country has to embrace ICT otherwise you will become part of the dark ages and I think all governments are aware of that. Belize and the government of Belize must take this issue very seriously otherwise there is a huge danger that the country will become isolated in terms of the global economy.
And again I can't stress enough how this is not for debate, there is no option here: should we or shouldn't we get Belize connected internally domestically and externally internationally. There is no question whether we have to do it. We have to do it. It is not just about the internet. Over 50% of the country has mobile telephones. We can now use cellular telephony to carry out transactions on line."
Devindra Ramanrine, Commonwealth Secretariat
"I am a citizen, I am living in a remote village, some life event happened, maybe the birth of a child or the death in the family or some event and I need to transact business with government. I can easily go on my cell phone, if I have one, I go on a government website and all the information, everything I need to do, and the form is online. If I need help to do it, the community access center may have a government employee there to help me.
I fill it out, it comes into government, and government does everything that is required and returns the information to the citizen. And whatever the citizen needs, whether it is about how you get inoculations - all of that is provided back to me without having to travel to the city and to figure out which Ministry to go to because I do it at my convenience."
Jules Vasquez,
Doesn't this sort of access undermines that sense of government centricity?
Devindra Ramanrine,
"I think though that might have been something in the past. I think citizens travel, citizens go to other countries. You see how things are in the U.S., you see how things are in Costa Rica, you travel around the Caribbean, you go to Singapore and as citizens become more aware of what's happening in other countries, they are not satisfied with what's happening in their own country."
Ramnarine is leading consultations with stakeholders from telecom companies, educational institutions, the media and, of course, government.
