WIDESPREAD digital literacy and high-speed 4G connectivity are among the things needed for CARICOM to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies and governments’ inability to deliver basic services, Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Edward Greene, has noted.

Just recently, the chancellor delivered a presentation titled, “Reflections on the Future of Guyana in Caribbean Community” when the University of Guyana, Office of Philanthropy, Alumni and Civic Engagement (PACE), hosted a professorial lecture series at Theatre Guild, Kingston, Georgetown.

Digital literacy, the skills and education that enable this, full and reliable high-speed Internet, and financial inclusion, will enable the populations to make and receive digital payments, Greene observed.

“It also requires consistently-positive online experiences that encourage confidence at a grassroots level… It needs too, significant financial resources and a significant development programmes if the Region is to achieve the levels of integration between government and its citizens,” he said.
The chancellor referred to the 2019 IDB report which he said indicates that 90 per cent of Caribbean government business transactions are carried out on a face-to-face basis, requiring multiple visits, queueing, then waiting at a counter, filling out forms, and writing letters.

An average transaction relating to education or healthcare takes five hours, reporting a crime takes 4.8 hours, tax payments 4.7 hours, and an enquiry about a social entitlement the same.

Even the most common transactions relating to vehicles take 3.5 hours. In Jamaica, he noted 45 per cent of all such transactions required three or more visits and was little better in Barbados where 43 per cent of similar enquiries involved the same amount of time. There was no comparative information for Guyana, he observed.
Meanwhile, both the 2019 Report of Transparency International and the 2019 IDB Survey addresses the issue of corruption and illegal payments made to resolve issues relating to the provision of government services.

He said it indicates that 18 per cent of respondents paid to ensure access to a public service to which they were entitled. “The figures were particularly high among those surveyed in Guyana at 27 per cent, but significantly lower in Barbados at nine per cent. The largest percentage of such payments across the Region related to utilities.”
Alarmingly, he said the report notes in passing what most know, that “15 per cent of people paid a bribe to obtain a document of one kind or another”.