1 month ago
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The Ministry of Labour has simplified the application process for Temporary Employment Permits (TEPS) by launching new online payment options. The Ministry says that thousands of TEPS are processed each year, but the private sector and applicants have complained about difficulties in the process. The new digital options enable applicants to pay with credit cards and E-Kyash and get a digital receipt, which can be used for official purposes. The initiative forms a part of the Ministry’s efforts to address the labour shortage in industries like agriculture, which depend on temporary workers during key points within the year. CEO Valentino Shal, says that the new system was made by a Belizean developer.
Valentino Shal, CEO, Ministry of Labour: “In the past, when you pay for government services you pay at a cashier like a real life person or some alternative is you go to the treasury department to do that payment to the cashier. And we feel that that is inconvenient and uh very inefficient especially for those large industries that depend on migrant labor and when they want to pay for their work permits. If you can imagine, if you have a company in Trio, the nearest Treasury Department or Treasury Office is in Dangriga or PG. So you have to leave your work and your farm to go and make those payments and then come back to the Labor Department to continue to do your application. And so we’re removing that completely. So there’d be no need to move about. And so the digitization of these payments using convenient payment options, debit card, credit card, E Kyash is very convenient and very helpful to those people who would have to travel long distances to make those payments. And so it’s a way of easing the way of doing business for us in the country and to make sure that the government revenues are properly collected and accounted for because there are really no errors when it comes to digitized payments, especially when you’re accounting and reconciling those numbers with the Treasury Department. This thing took about six months from beginning to end. What I want to say and I’m proud to say is that this application was developed entirely by Belizean developers. So we didn’t hire any foreign consultant, we didn’t hire anyone from abroad. Everything was done locally with our developer who is local, he’s from San Ignacio and as you can see it’s a very spectacular job. The application that processed the payments, the cashiering module is also a Belizean production. We try to support our IT people and work together with them because that’s also an important thing for us. “
The Ministry says that the next step is to coordinate with other government departments to ensure integration of the digital payment methods. /
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