President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has instructed officials to work towards a single national digital system covering public services, rather than the separate platforms that individual government institutions now run independently.
The directive came at a progress review meeting on the government’s digital transformation programme held at the Presidential Secretariat on Tuesday, Daily Mirror reported. The meeting focused on the digitalisation of local authorities and Divisional Secretariats.
The instruction
Dissanayake told officials to identify every service local authorities are required to provide to the public, and to determine which of those could be moved into digital systems. He also called for an assessment of whether existing digital platforms adequately cover those services.
The central point was consolidation: the President emphasised the need to move away from separate systems operated independently by different government institutions, and to develop one national system covering the public service instead.
Who has to coordinate
A key item under discussion was the National Framework for the Digitalisation of Local Authorities, currently being developed by the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government.
Dissanayake instructed that ministry and the Ministry of Digital Economy to coordinate closely. Three officers from the Ministry of Digital Economy are to be assigned to the further development of the national system operated under the Ministry of Public Administration. They will also identify shortcomings in existing systems and oversee amendments and improvements.
What is already digital
The meeting reviewed services already delivered digitally through local authorities, including:
- payment of rates
- miscellaneous revenues such as charges for display boards
- bookings of playgrounds and public halls
- shop rentals and water bills
Digital mechanisms for obtaining permits and licences, and systems introduced to provide prompt responses to public grievances, were also discussed. Officials examined ways of further developing digital payment systems such as GovPay.
Context
Fragmentation across government IT systems has been a recurring constraint on Sri Lanka’s digitalisation programme, with ministries and agencies procuring platforms separately. Local authorities and Divisional Secretariats are the layer most citizens actually transact with, which makes them the point where duplicated systems are most visible.
Sources
Ada Derana also reported the meeting, but its pages were not reachable at the time of writing.
