Officials at the Ministry of Digital transformation said legislative reform might be needed to address challenges with government transactions and services.

At a virtual consultation hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce, officials of the ministry said it was looking into legislative reform to enhance electronic transactions for the public.

Deputy national chief digital officer at the ministry, Wayne Nakhid, said, “Unfortunately if you upgrade them or replace them you still have to facilitate manual or paper. You may be aware of instances where you go online but you still have to print the document and sign it.”

He said one of the key enablers to the ministry's digital transformation plan was to enhance the financial system which ministries used to collect money.

“We have gone to a company called Free Balance and the Ministry of Finance is close to launching a product so we will have a digital cash portfolio that would make it easier for transactions to be completed.”

He added, coming out of several debates at parliamentary joint select committees, there would be changes taking place to widen the number of transactions that could be done through the use of a digital signature.

He added that security forces at the Ministry of National security might also be able to benefit from interoperability modules which would assist in optimising the systems.

Nakhid said the ministry would engage in the digital transformation of the nation with three pillars. The first being a digital society where the elderly, people with physical or mental disabilities, the hearing impaired and others would not be left behind.

He said such people would need to be encouraged to use online services as the ministry made more of them available.

The ministry called its second transformation pillar the Digital Economy – using industries such as ICT to encourage diversification of the economy.

The third pillar is digital government where the ministry will ensure that government has a safe, secure and reliable digital framework. This would include a data centre infrastructure.