Jamaica on path to full digitisation, says technology minister
Members of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and other stakeholders have said that the viability of the country’s business sector and the quality of life enjoyed by citizens could become significantly improved if services were to become fully digital.
During a recent PSOJ conference, stakeholders agreed that a fully digital Jamaica would better help the country to also recover from the economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The development of a national broadband network with high-speed Internet that is accessible to everyone is the first step in becoming fully digital,” Technology Minister Fayval Williams said during the online conference held last Friday. “The second step is the development and use of e-commerce platforms.”
She noted that as a response to the ongoing pandemic, the technology ministry has established a New Economy Taskforce which forms part of the Economic Recovery Taskforce and comprises representatives of both the private and public sectors, as the ministry seeks to develop an eight-part strategy to move the country towards becoming fully digital.
“The strategy includes the creation of an Information and Communications Technology authority, data-collection and information-sharing policies, a public key infrastructure, a digital national identification system, data protection legislation, an Electronic Transaction Act, and digitisation of 32 million physical records across the government.
“Four of the eight initiatives have been passed in Parliament and partially implemented over the last few years,” the PSOJ said.
Larren Peart, chief executive officer of market research company BlueDot Insights, added that the provision of digital payment options by businesses was now needed.
Referring to statistics from a poll done by his company, Peart indicated that only a few people were keen on utilising online or digital payment systems, and as such, about 80 per cent of transactions remain cash-based.
“Businesses need to overcome the cultural barrier that makes them cash-bound — they should implement and use digital payment systems to reduce the use of cash,” he said.