Just over a year into his post, Digital Transformation Minister Hassel Bacchus rates his performance as “fair”. His self-esteem of “right” is because he is a difficult leader.
“For me, I’ll never be able to say I’ve done enough. We have achieved a lot and I want to be able to do more,” he told Sunday Business in an interview last week.
He said one of his “biggest successes” has been making the public service more digitally aware and showing them how to be efficient.
“Since I was appointed, I have probably attended six physical Cabinet meetings and some of them were retreats. We make the Cabinet online. We do Finance and General Purposes (F&GP) online. All committee meetings are held online. It is certainly more efficient. “Covid may have pushed us there, but these are lessons we have learned,” he said.
So where exactly is his ministry in terms of digital transformation?
He explained that digital transformation was not limited to the performance of a ministry, but to the entire public service.
“It’s about alignment. Everything that happened before was done in silos. Ministries did not communicate with each other. There were different levels of security, no coordination of laptops or software purchases happening across ministries. So we’ve been able to go in and simplify a lot of that. A great deal is happening in the Ministry of Social Development and the Ministry of Works and Transport,” he said.
“You know how when you’re building a new building, you put a little galvanizing on it to keep the public from seeing it? However, the work is being done? Well that’s exactly what it’s like. We are doing the work, but it is meticulous, it takes time, but it is being done. And one day, we’ll be able to move the galvanizing and show our customers what we’ve been up to. Note that I say customers because that’s how we see them. Customers are not just people who consume services. Customers also include the people who provide the services. These are all public offices. So, when we talk about the implementation of technology, we are focusing on the consumer, but also on the processes that enable the realization of the distribution”, he said.
And what time frame is he working on?
He is reluctant to commit to a specific date, explaining that digital transformation is not an overnight fix and would be a continuous evolving process as things change over time.
“It’s a journey. Not a destination. There is no end,” he said.
In an interview last year after his appointment to the new ministry on July 21, 2021, Bacchus said that while the government’s policies are in line with the People’s National Movement Vision 2030, there will be incremental steps with a series of milestones that will fulfilled next year.
“It is difficult to put a definite time frame for change, but I would say that 2030 is a reasonable target for the concept of a digital T&T. By then it would mean that we would have quality, secure and resilient infrastructure. We would have optimized ICT in our daily life making our population more productive, our business and public services would be conducted digitally and digital technology would be in harmony with the ICT environment.
“We will also have, and more importantly, a digital sector that is contributing to our GDP and earning us foreign exchange. But as I mentioned before, getting us there requires some massive undertakings and Moko Jumbie-sized milestones. But with the right capacity and infrastructure, nothing is impossible”, he said.
In March, Bacchus said it has 94 government services available online and that by the end of the year, it hopes to reach 200.
Hits and mistakes
Bacchus described the implementation of the TT Travel Pass as a success but admitted that the traveling public did not like it.
“Not once did the website go offline,” he said.
What about vaccination cards that did not materialize?
He explained that two solutions have been built for the Government – one by Crimson Logic, based in Singapore, which previously worked for the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The other was from Riomed, a UK-based company, and one was accepted.
He said what followed were challenges in data collection as there were human errors in entering names.
“The error rate was just too high,” he said.
Responding in the Senate to a question from the opposition, Bacchus said “investigations and cleanups” caused a stalemate.
He said there was “unacceptable level of inconsistency in the database which remains to be questioned”.
Bacchus also pointed out that malware discovered in December 2021 named Log4j as another reason:
“This required assessment and fixed enforcement where applicable … it was quite dangerous and needed to be addressed,” he said.
He said that “no cost has been incurred by the government as the companies have developed the solution free of charge”.
As it stands, the solution is still an option for the Government to use as a deposit for the Ministry of Health for immunization history.
He said it would be up to Energy Minister Stuart Young, in his capacity as minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, to authorize its use.
Meanwhile, Bacchus said he has a lot of work to do on the legislation — some that needs to be repealed, some that needs to be amended and some that are new.
He said a major challenge with the new legislation, which would address the new technology, is that it would require a special majority to ensure it does not infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights.
“However, the political environment is such that the Government has not been able to convince the opposition for its initiatives, so the legislation that requires a special majority has not been approved”, he emphasized.
In a speech to public servants at a Digital Transformation workshop in January, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said his vision was for a transformed T&T where citizens were satisfied with the purpose, quality and delivery of public services which were delivered on time right at the point of people’s need.
He said he envisioned digital technology being fully used in the public and private sectors to improve the ease of doing business and that a transformed public service would allow “an attack on the white-collar criminal behavior that currently thrives undetected.” punished, but that will dry up. if access is digitally controlled and recorded and information in the form of evidence identifies who did what, where, when, how and under what authority.”
Citizen with digital writing
For his ministry to be successful, Bacchus must accept the public: if they don’t access and use online services, it won’t happen soon enough.
So for him, a big focus at this point is digital literacy.
He describes this as a cultural shift that needs to happen as the ministry aims to improve customers’ understanding of the potential and use of the Internet as a basic commodity/service and harnessing its creative and economic potential for digital transformation.
One of the findings of the 2021 Digital Inclusion Survey conducted by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) concluded that more than 70 percent of households have a functioning fixed broadband internet service (fixed internet subscription ).
In pursuit of promoting digital literacy, the Ministry of Digital Transformation has established, in collaboration with the Youth Training and Employment Partnership Program (YTEPP), a functional digital literacy program at ICT access centers in all over the country and in YTEPP facilities.
Bacchus told Sunday Business he was pleased with the reception.
“Last Tuesday, before the PNM political meeting in Belmont, I stopped by the center there to check and at 8 o’clock there were still people there, so I’m happy with that,” he said.
