BRADES, Montserrat — More than 15 senior members of staff from various government departments in Montserrat began a two-day workshop on developing an E-Government strategy during last month.
The workshop comes on the heels of the successful ICT Roadshow which highlighted the necessity for the island to develop a national information communication technologies (ICT) strategy, which would stimulate the island’s economy and social development.
Ramesh Gupta, President of Systems Strategies Inc. of Ottawa Canada facilitated the workshops, organized by the Department of Information Technology and E-Government Services (DITES).
Gupta told the group of senior civil servants that he spent a few days prior to the workshop speaking to residents to gather their views. “I found a phenomenally high level of interest in ICTs and lots of aspirations to build the island. This says we are ahead in the game as in many other places you are starting from the ground. We do have a way to go and develop a more planned action for forming an E-Government strategy.”
The informatics strategist says this new plan must be connected to Montserrat’s Sustainable Development Plan. Gupta said the island’s size was an asset in that it would be easier to implement new strategies as well as link with the regional initiatives going on with CARICOM and the OECS.
He added that any new strategy needed champions to push the process forward. “After speaking to the chief minister for more than two hours (a week before the workshop), I realize you have a champion in him. The director of DITES Denzil West and the director of the Public Sector Reform Unit (PSRU) Delmaude Ryan are also champions for this and that gives you a good team moving forward.”
“E-Government is about information management and not just acquitting more technology,” he explained. Gupta called for the “marshalling of public and private sector resources which would lessen the costs. He also said this would mean the necessity to increase security measures as everything now happens in real time.
“If government becomes a model user of ICT, it will rub off on family and neighbors and before too long Montserrat will be an example to the rest of the region,” explained the facilitator.
At the close of the workshop an E-Government Steering Committee is to be established to continue the process to developing Montserrat’s National ICT Plan
