–Minister Persaud highlights

THE digitisation of social services is being briskly pursued, according to the Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Dr Vindhya Persaud, who emphasises the importance of a digital architecture to better serve Guyanese nationwide.

During the consideration of estimates on Friday, the Minister spoke extensively on the policies being crafted, the outreaches being conducted and how contemporary issues are being tackled by her ministry.

Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Natasha Singh-Lewis quizzed the minister on the 62 outreaches that the ministry conducted in 2024.

Dr Persaud said: “Our ministry has been out there [and] on the ground with me [and] without me. We are on the ground, all the time and this is the process.”

Taking services to the people is the hallmark of this Ministry, she said, noting that since assuming her position in 2020, this has been continuous.

Singh-Lewis went on to raise concerns about training.

The Minister said that there are a number of areas that the ministry is seeking to work on.

One of the ongoing major projects, which is being done in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is creation of a digital architecture for the ministry.

She said: “In this way, we intend to digitse all of the beneficiary registers, digitise how people access our beneficiary programmes, notably pension, public assistance, permanent disability.

“Because one of the things that I found when I went to the ministry is that it was kind of chaotic, we didn’t have access to the backend. It was very difficult to navigate because data was all over the place.”

She said this project will not only enable data to be gathered but also provide a central point to integrate data.

A good database and registry are part of the targets of this project.
With that said, the Minister said that training personnel is crucial.

Under the current government, Guyana has been charging ahead to not only bridge the digital gap but also ensuring the reach, quality and impact of services are improved.

For instance, in December, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony said progress is being made in the digitisation of Guyana’s healthcare sector through the addition of electronic health records and it is expected to move ahead in the coming year as the contract for same is to be awarded soon