By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE MINISTER of State for Legal Affairs said yesterday that the 15,000 file backlog at the Registrar General’s Department should be alleviated by month’s end, pledging major improvement through putting services on-line.

“By Budget time we should have completely removed the 15,000 file backlog that we had met, and that has been a challenge,” Damian Gomez said.

“We’re well on the way to accomplishing what we set out to do in terms of how our Registry operates and, moving forward, making it easier for people to conduct business at the registry.”

Mr Gomez told Tribune Business that the transformation of the Registrar General’s Department has been a challenging and costly process.

But, noting the importance of the Government improving the ease of doing business, he said company registration, birth and deaths registration, deeds and documents registration, maritime marriages and intellectual property registration would all be made available on-line.

Mr Gomez said he was optimistic that by November 2013 the public would be able to see just how far the Government’s e-government portal has expanded.

He addedx that the expansion of the Government’s information and communications technology (ICT) platform would be a tremendous benefit to residents in the Family Islands.

“The expansion of the ICT platform will benefit both Family Island residents as well as winter residents and vacation home owners,” he said.

“For our citizens this will represent a significant cost savings in that they can access essential public services without having to travel to New Providence. Similarly, winter residents and summer vacationers will be able to benefit from access to e-government services,” said Mr Gomez.

“The speed of doing business has increased exponentially with the speed of technology and, simply put, we need to keep up. The e-government platform has to evolve with the pace of ICT platforms around the world. Our e-government platform competes directly with other major financial centres.”

Mr Gomez added that information over the ICT platform must be secure. “This requires that the Government acquires data management policies, which will require the training of of public and department officials on complex aspects of data and systems management. This training would ensure that we maintain a secure ICT so that confidential user information is protected from those seeking to exploit information,” said Mr Gomez.