Tuesday, December 1 2009

SPECIAL SOFTWARE being purchased by the Government for the revamping of the troubled Licensing Division has been described as “problem-plagued” and filled with “bugs”, notwithstanding a reported $4.6 million price tag being paid by the Government in an arrangement with the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

According to a report carried in Canada’s The Chronicle Herald last week, “Nova Scotia is exporting its problem-plagued computer system at the Registry of Motor Vehicles to Trinidad and Tobago before all the bugs are worked out.”

The report notes that The Chronicle Herald obtained documents showing that the province’s computer system, “hasn’t worked properly since it was introduced in April 2008.” In July, Trinidad and Tobago and Nova Scotia struck an agreement that would give this country the right to use the software code and standard operating procedures of Nova Scotia’s system. Last year, Public Administration Minister Kennedy Swaratsingh visited Nova Scotia in early talks in relation to reforming the Licensing Division which was carded to begin a high-tech transformation in October of this year. Swaratsingh did not immediately respond to phone messages or emails on the issue yesterday.

The Canadian report notes that while the system being purchased by this country is flawed, it would still be a vast improvement on the paper-based system that has existed here for years.

“They’ve got a lot of issues down there — a paper-based system, quite a lot of corruption,” said Nancy MacLellan, an executive director at Service Nova Scotia, the department charged with the Canadian registry of motor vehicles. She notes that, “Trinidad and Tobago’s government is aware of the major problems Nova Scotia has had with the new system but still wants it.” “They are not concerned,” she is quoted as saying. MacLellan said the long wait times the computer problems have caused for Nova Scotians trying to renew licences and registrations would still be an improvement over the current situation in Trinidad and Tobago. “In their world, waiting 70 minutes is a bonus,” she said. “People line up in the morning with their paperwork and at five o’clock they are sent home” if they haven’t reached the front of the line. The former Conservative government authorised Service Nova Scotia to enter into the agreement with Trinidad and Tobago with an order-in-council on June 5, this year.