Drivers Left Without Licenses After Ministry Fails to Pay Software Bill

Another issue that CEO Chester Williams is looking to counter is the unavailability of drivers’ licenses.  It turns out that someone at the Ministry of Transport failed in its due diligence and did not make payment for the license software.  It is a blunder that now has drivers unable to acquire a driver’s license.  CEO Williams told Love News that it is a situation that he will be addressing in a meeting tomorrow with officials at the Taiwan Embassy.  Additionally, he noted that he is looking to corroborate with traffic officials on a municipal level.

Chester Williams, CEO, Ministry of Transport: “I was notified about a week and half ago by the Chief Transport Officer that the system has gone down. Reason being that there seems to have been some fees that were supposed to be paid to the developers of the program who are from Taiwan and that fee was not paid. The non payment of the fee is not attributed to the government. The money is in a special bank account for the fee to have been paid but somehow the ministry dropped the ball and the fee was not paid so what we’ll be doing now to rectify that issue tomorrow morning I’ll be meeting with the Taiwanese embassy in Belize City to see if they’ll be able to assist us in getting in contact with the developers of the program and the reason for that is because we want to be able to make payment of the outstanding fee that is owed and two to see if we can get them to bring the system back on stream. The system is important and while some might say why not go and develop a new system the importance of the system is that it will not only work for the national transport but what we want to do is to create a system where the national transport and the municipal traffic will be able to communicate with each other. Whatever license would have been issued by the local traffic we want that national traffic will be able to see that and vice versa. So having that connectivity between the different traffic departments and national transport is important for us as we navigate the whole issue of road safety in this country. So we’re hoping that the developers will be able to bring the system back on stream. For the time being what we’re doing is we’re only issuing the receipts for the driver’s license which is not good. So people who are now renewing the drivers license will not get the physical license they’ll get a receipt and whenever they arrive at a checkpoint they will have to produce the receipt to show that they have paid fro the renewal. Again we’re asking the police as well as our traffic personnel and the municipal traffic to be able to honor the receipt for now until we can get the system back up and running to be able to provide the physical drivers license to those persons.”

Additionally, in a move to develop a national network, CEO Williams says the Ministry of Transportation is looking to corroborate with traffic officials on a municipal level.  

Chester Williams, CEO, Ministry of Transport:  “While some might say why not go and develop a new system the importance of the system is that it will not only work for the national transport but what we want to do is to create a system where the national transport and the municipal traffic will be able to communicate with each other. Whatever license would have been issued by the local traffic we want that national traffic will be able to see that and vice versa. So having that connectivity between the different traffic departments and national transport is important for us as we navigate the whole issue of road safety in this country. So we’re hoping that the developers will be able to bring the system back on stream as well as to add more features to the system.  The users of the system do complain that it was not able to do all that  they wanted it to do.  And I said to them that our system will only give you what you ask the developers to allow the system to do. So I tasked the Chief Transport Officer to put together a team of his personnel and to also incorporate personnel from the municipal transport or traffic so that they can come together and decide on exactly what they want the system to be able to do so that when we go back to the developers we’ll be able to say to them that we want this, we want that,  whatever the case may be so they can give us what we want. Again, the  issue here is to make sure that the system is user friendly.  And two, that it will be able to provide particularly search queries and the ability to be able to develop reports.  So those are things that we want to see the system do. So  I’m very optimistic that we’ll be able to get the system back on stream very quickly.”