Electronic transactions law on the cards for 2023 - Nandlall

Electronic transactions law on the cards for 2023 – Nandlall

Dec 28, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – The Government of Guyana intends to introduce laws that will govern electronic transactions come 2023, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall said.

The E-Transaction and E-Payment Bills which would allow citizens to make payments via their debit and credit cards in a more secure and comfortable environment will soon be tabled in the National Assembly.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall

“E-Transaction/E-Payment Bills are also two pieces of legislation that will also come on stream (in) 2023. This is where we are going to introduce and allow for the use of plastic in public institutions’ payments. We have to move in that direction, dispense with money and so on and use cards in the public sector,” the Attorney General explained last week on his programme ‘Issues in the News’.

The introduction of these Bills would support Government’s drive to develop a Single Window System, for which legislation has already been presented to the National Assembly.

Implementation of the Single Window System Bill would allow citizens to conduct all of their necessary transactions with Government agencies through one source. The Bill is structured in a way that would ensure citizens get to conduct services swiftly and efficiently within a specific timeframe, and that would aid in eradicating constant delays, maladministration, bribery and corruption.

Nandlall explained that if a document sent to a specific agency is not completed within a given timeframe, it would automatically be considered approved.

“This Bill has a mechanism that when it goes to a particular office, if it stays there within a particular timeframe and it is not dealt with by that agency, it is deemed to be granted. Whatever that agency had to do, the law says it will be presumed that it was granted, and the application moves on,” Nandlall stressed.

Meanwhile, the General Register Office (GRO) and Immigration Support Services have only recently implemented their e-payment options through Mobile Money Guyana (MMG).

This system was launched to allow persons to make online payments for transactions conducted with those agencies, so as to save time and have services offered to them more efficiently.