The use of computers is a must in this day and age. Over the years, the government and private companies have invested heavily in computer systems to improve their efficiency and productivity. And they will need to continue investing as new technologies are “invented” to enable computers to work faster and become more reliable.
The e-government service is a feather in the administration’s cap. For one thing, it has facilitated the attainment of certificates and other documents from the comfort of one’s home, while at the same time reducing the queues that pile up in government departments that provide such a service.
It was therefore heartening to get to know that the Government Property Division will be undergoing a three-year exercise that will eventually lead to the computerisation of all property that is administered by the government.
During the launch of the project last week, Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi said that nearly 900 files are “moved” every working day for a staggering total of 250,000 a year. As it is, the system currently in use is laborious and burdensome. Once the central database is completed, it will become much less hectic and certainly more user-friendly.
It has taken quite a while for the exercise to start – the initial agreement was reached in 2004 – but now that the ball has been set rolling it is hoped that the three-year deadline will be met. It must be pointed out that Datatrak, the company that has been entrusted with the work, will be using 2010 technology at the price that was agreed six years ago.
What is also important is that, once all the documents pertaining to government property are made available online, the Land and Estate Management Information System (LEMIS) – as the exercise is called – will continue to be updated as time goes by.
Although, as said before, the e-government service is on the whole very efficient, there are pockets which need seeing to. For example, as The Malta Independent on Sunday reported yesterday, the Local Government Department section of the Office of the Prime Minister website has not been updated for 18 months.
This department, which falls under the responsibility of parliamentary secretary Chris Said, should make it a point to regularly update the list of councillors and other data relevant to local councils. As things stand now, the website does not offer the correct information. For one thing, the councillors elected in last June’s local council elections are still not listed.
To go back to LEMIS, it must be pointed out that today, the process of looking for a vacant property takes between four to six weeks, and on most occasions it relies on the memory of the individuals concerned.
Once the system is in place, it will be possible for people to look for vacant property on the internet. This will save time and improve efficiency, and it will simultaneously reduce the workload of the Government Property Division, which will then be able to concentrate on other matters not necessarily related to research.