Bill seeks digitalization of all public services

The initiative adds an article to the Law of Protection to the citizen of the excess of requirements and administrative procedures, so that it is the same Political Constitution, which orders the implementation of digital offices throughout the public sector and not only in some areas such as health for example. This proposal of file #20.089, would have a direct and gradual impact on the functioning of the State, since it would not only avoid that many citizens do not have to travel to the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM) to do certain errands, but would also streamline and modernize the institutional paperwork. The project received the endorsement of the Director of Digital Signature Certificates of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications (Micitt), Alexander Barquero Elizondo, who assured during his appearance before the Commission, that this would avoid multiplicity of functions, problems with the excess of paperwork, as well as a reduction in the use of paper that would represent about 15 billion colones and a positive impact on the environment. “It is an instrument of law that would allow the country to have the strength for the institutions to start with an orderly transformation and that eventually, once its development is completed, would generate benefits to all Costa Rican inhabitants (…) What we want is to force all the institutions of the Costa Rican public sector, that is to say, all those where public resources are allocated, to have electronic headquarters and not only physical ones”, explained Elizondo. The Head of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), Javier Cambronero Arguedas, subscribed this file that was born as a presidential directive, since he assures that this consolidates by law, the right of the citizens to relate with the public administration in a digital way. “There are studies that show that 1 out of every 4 car trips made in the Greater Metropolitan Area, are made by people who are on their way to carry out a state procedure. We can save time and resources if we move these processes to digital offices,” said Congressman Javier Cambronero Arguedas. Currently, in Costa Rica there are no technical guidelines that regulate or require a certain level of quality of electronic services. For this reason, the project seeks that citizens have a friendlier relationship with public procedures and at the same time meet the minimum standards established by the Micitt. On average, it is estimated that at least 1 million people enter the country’s capital every day and a quarter of them do so to carry out a public procedure. A 2012 decree issued by the Executive Power ordered that the State entities carry out the digitalization through a reordering of their own economic resources allocated each year by the Treasury, however this has not yet been fully achieved and has advanced at a slow pace. Note taken from: EL PAIS.CR