The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

REAL property tax payments is the most-used service by the 6,000 persons currently registered with the Bahamas’ e-government portal, with work permit applications among the items set to be introduced next.

The Government’s director of information technology, June Collie, told Tribune Business yesterday that real property tax payments was the most used out of the five services currently offered.

Speaking at the first ever e-government and business forum, Ms Collie said work permit applications would soon be one of the additions to the e-government service.

“There are 6,000 registered users on the government’s e-portal. We register individuals because we want accountability on a personal level,” she said

“There is a part of some of the services, like our Business License service, which can be delegated. As a business owner you can delegate another person to use your Business License account or to work on it for you, but all of the transactions are at an individual level.”

Through www.bahamas.gov.bs, general information about the Government and the Bahamas can be obtained, and online payments can be made for things such as a driver’s license and real property tax.

The $10.2 million e-government system was launched under the Ingraham administration in 2011.

“We are pleasantly surprised at the number considering we haven’t really been pushing e-government that much,” Ms Collie said of registered users.

“Right now we have five services on-line. You can pay your property tax, renew your driver’s license, pay a fine, do customer service. We also have a service where if you are conducting business with the Government and you are receiving payments from the Treasury, you can go on-line to see whether they are available and when you can come and pick them up.

“The real property tax payment service is by far the most used service on the portal. Bahamians are using it, but for the most part we have the foreigners using it,” said Ms Collie.

“We were targeting Immigration work permits. We are finished with the technical requirements for that service, so we just need to have a sign-off by Immigration and we will be going out to vendors on that.

“We are doing several projects with the Attorney General’s Office. A real big one is trying to revamp their companies service. They already have one on-line, but the one they have doesn’t have the payment option, so we need to rewrite that and get it inside the portal so you can do those payments on-line.

“We are targeting another service which will allow citizens to be able to pay their Oost Office box rentals on-line. Then you have the Business License application as well as paying it on-line.”