The Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology, Aminath Shauna said that the government’s inter-agency communication system, GEMS fared very poorly before the current administration assumed office.
During the ceremony held to launch the government’s digital portal ‘oneGov’, Minister Shauna said that GEMS services lagged especially in processing letters between government agencies. She also noted that it often took two to three days for letters to be drafted and sent through the GEMS portal, resulting in a rise in complaints due to lengthy response times.
According to the minister, the government’s inter-agency communication system, GEMS, launched in 2010 faced significant hindrances since its inception. Upon assuming her position, her first priority was to address the communication lag among state bodies.
The minister further highlighted that one of the major setbacks of the GEMS system was its lack of proper monitoring feature, which prevented the ministers from viewing letters sent to other government bodies. During her tenure as the Minister of Technology, she had focused on upgrading the system to include a comprehensive monitoring feature that will allow for tracking the progress of documents and applications.
While the latest GEMS upgrade is currently in evaluation with the inclusion of five different government ministries, the state’s ultimate goal is to expand the platform to include over 400 state-related agencies.
Besides discussing further plans, she also emphasized on the importance of data protection and safety as the Maldives transitions towards becoming a fully digital government. Meanwhile, the ministry has begun collecting public opinion for the Data Privacy and Protection Bill and commenced drafting the Cyber-security Bill.
At the ceremony, the minister had acknowledged the challenging in retaining IT specialists and highlighted the limited number of technical staff at the National Center for Information Technology (NCIT). She however, emphasized the current government’s efforts to improve the sector which included increments to the remuneration of IT employees, and a 122% budgetary increase for the NCIT.