Taiwan Ambassador presents Prime Minister Anthony with cheque.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) on Monday presented the government of Saint Lucia with over EC $2,381,000 or US$885,722.79 million for implementation of the second phase of the Multi-Channel Data Center (MCDC) Program.
The MCDC program is being implemented by the Ministry of Public Service, Information and Broadcasting under an agreement which was first made on March 26, 2014. The initiative consists of several components, which include the recent opening of a government digitization center.
Today’s funds will go towards the implementation of a government call center or 311 Center which will serve as a hotline for persons seeking information on government ministries or agencies on the island. The funds will also be used to install a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking system for government vehicles and a new electronic document record management system which seeks to eliminate the delivery of hard copy mail between government ministries.
The 311 Call Center
According to Information minister Dr. James Fletcher the the government’s 311 contact/call center facility will be the supported by a “very robust database” so that persons wishing to get information on a particular ministry will not only be directed to the necessary point-person in the ministry “but will have an array of information at their disposal that should allow them to give quite a bit of information to members of the public who are seeking that information.”
“So the 311 Center will be a very important one for us and I think it will also combine some of the services being offered right now by the tourist board in its call center. So there will be synergies and some consolidation,” Dr. Fletcher said.
Government vehicle GPS tracking system
This new vehicle GPS tracking system, as the many other components of the MCDC project, is aimed at reducing government spending, modernizing the public service and improving its efficiency.
According to Fletcher, the vehicle tracking system will see the installation of GPS tracking devices on all government vehicles.
“That will allow us to cut down on the wastage [and] give us a better management of our fleet to determine how well we utilizing energy, and how efficient that it is being used. It will also be accompanied by a policy on the use of these vehicles. More information will be given on this next week when the program is launched,” he informed.
Mail delivery between ministries to be cut
Under the MCDC project the government said it will also seek to reduce what it coined a “vexing” issue involving the delivery of mail between government ministries. He said often times ministries are left to deliver very few mail to other ministries, sometimes in government SUV’s, which is considered a costly daily practice.
According to Dr. Fletcher, efforts will be made to reduce this physical delivery of mail through the new MCDC’s electronic document and record management system which will primarily involve email messaging.
“With the electronic document record management system, we will see a lot of those documents now being delivered electronically rather than hard copy that is traversing the city of Castries. So we should see significant savings from government,” he said.
Fletcher additionally expressed gratitude “with great humility” to the government of Taiwan for once again extending its hand towards the development of St. Lucia.
Among the other components of the MCDC project is the implementation of a government digitization center which was officially opened recently. This, like the rest of the MCDC initiatives seems to digitize “all of government records and reduce on the large volumes of paper that are being stored in every single government ministry.” That initiative also allows for easy retrieval and indexing of that information by other government agencies and by members of the public, he said.
Dr. Fletcher informed that Wednesday will see the formalizing of an agreement with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the government of Taiwan and St. Lucia on cooperation on ICT matters which will set the framework. This MOU has already been endorsed by cabinet “will set the pace for the work that we will do within our governments in ICT.”
Meanwhile, Pirme Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony also thanked the government of Taiwan for the disbursement.
He gave the assurance that he will see to the proper implementation of these projects. “You will agree that this is a lot of money, and so I am anxious to see the results and I will be watching very closely what is happening in the public service as a result.”
Total disbursement by Taiwan for the MCDC project so far is 79.4 percent of the total approved cost of $2.5 million.
Ambassador to Taiwan James Chang said he believes that such presentation of funds will serve as a good example of his government’s commitment to supporting St. Lucia’s development.