Public sector goes back to work embracing technology

Sri Lanka’s public sector has geared up to resume work moving away from colonial- era public administration system and changing the way of providing services to the people; learning lessons from almost two months of living with the coronavirus.

The urgent need is to simplify public administration and re-engineer processes, removing redundant regulations, approvals, paper work and documents sooner than later.

Back-office work at public sector institutions should be fully modernised using available computer facilities making a paradigm shift in the attitude of public sector employees eliminating bureaucratic red tape, top-level official sources said.

The challenge is to make use of administrative processes to implement public policies, maximising the use of collaborative technologies and available resources as well as changing the mindset of the public sector staff.

COVID-19 has accelerated technology use in the public sector prompting government authorities to go for digital transformation.

However Sri Lanka’s bureaucracy has been decaying for decades and it now seems to have almost ground to a halt while the lethargic attitude and lack of basic knowledge or ignorance in IT has made the public service inefficient, a public sector expert in network management, who once served as the Area Representative of ITU Regional Office Asia and Pacific in Bangkok, told the Business Times.

The training of officials on productive use of e-mail services is a vital prerequisite for the success of digitalising the economy, he said adding that grim passivity to e-mail communications was the normal practice in the public sector in the recent past.

However the time has come to transform the pre-Internet record room, information management system, initially to a smart system and thereafter to AI-driven system and also use it as a tool to monitor the quality of deliverables, he said.

After a two- month period of remote working, the public sector will have to face a range of technological and HR implications after resuming work without modifying their bureaucracy, he added.

Telecommuting products that benefit services and judicial sector comprises products such as BPO, Tele- working, e- court services, e- RTI, Telemarketing direct to retailer /customer, Tele education, and Tele-control etc.

The current backlog of court cases is reported to have exceeded 800,000. Typically each backlog case is called up around three times annually.

Thus, on any working day, the litigant populace daily commuting to courts is over 70,000 and increasing - most just to be informed of the next calling date, he revealed.

The litigant populace could avoid commuting to courts if e-court services such as those implemented in Europe and some Asian countries using ‘Telecommuting Constructs’ are available.

Virtusa Sri Lanka Chief Information Officer Madu Ratnayake told the Business Times that, “as we embrace the gig economy and enter an era of global war for talent, the concept of ‘going’ to work is becoming increasingly irrelevant”.

“People will work from anywhere in the world for more than one company at the same time. Ability to marshal global teams for global work is going to be a core competence most companies will have to develop to be future ready,” he added.

Telecommuting is becoming popular due to increasing bandwidths of telecommunication networks and Internet- based software for communication.

Sushena Ranatunga, Managing Director/CEO of Cambio Software Engineering & Four Corners Lanka ( Pvt) Ltd, pointed out that some organisations do not need all their employees to be in office all the time.

They only need work to get completed no matter the location they attend to it, he said adding that “IT is one profession that we can use telecommuting to a great extent with minimum resources”.

A computer and a good Internet connection are sufficient to fulfill the need to perform most of the dayto-day tasks.

In most of the developed countries software engineers and related professionals work from home and go to their work place only a day or two for meetings, he disclosed.

According to Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Oshada Senanayake, “the overall digitalisation road map for the public sector is expected to take longer and will be executed in tandem with the ICTA”.

The TRCSL has fulfilled the government’s request for its employees to remotely work from home while offering its services without disruption.