The Barbados Licensing Authority (BLA) has begun working weekends and overtime in a bid to clear a mounting backlog in vehicle registrations and inspections, as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Works Santia Bradshaw assured the public that their complaints “have not fallen on deaf ears”.
Recently, Bradshaw told a Nation team that additional staff were being brought in at the Pine base for training starting this weekend, as Government intensifies efforts to stabilise operations following persistent disruptions linked to the rollout of a new information technology system.
Bradshaw disclosed that progress had already been made, with 40 per cent of the backlog cleared for vehicle licensing and 25 per cent for inspections, even as staff continued to grapple with the challenges of transitioning to the new system.
Speaking on the situation, she explained that the difficulties stemmed from the collapse of the old IT system late last year, which forced a rapid build-out of a replacement platform.
“I think the public is well aware that we’ve been having some challenges with the IT system and we are working with our external consultants to be able to rectify the challenges that we are having,”she said.
“Essentially the old system broke down and we were forced to really have a quick build out of a new system. That new system requires our staff to be pretty much trained on the new system. It’s similar to the old one but it obviously has some new features, which they have to learn how to input into the current system.”
According to her, the backlog particularly affected people with existing vehicles, whose records could not be retrieved while the system was down.
“We had a number of people who were complaining, especially persons who already had an existing vehicle that they were coming to Licensing Authority. They couldn’t get the registrations done because the system was down and we could not pull up the information from their old registration.”
New vehicle registrations, however, were easier to process, she said.
“If it was a new vehicle, it was a bit simpler because in some cases it had come through the Port. Basically it was being registered for the first time, so it was not a case that you had to verify the registration documents.”
To tackle the backlog, the Authority initially added five staff members, but Bradshaw noted that training during the normal work week proved difficult due to the heavy volume of customers.
“One of the biggest challenges is that our staff have not been able to deal with the backlog during the working week, while at the same time being able to train on the new system,” she said.
As a result, staff were asked to volunteer for weekends to focus exclusively on training without the pressure of public service.
“What we’ve done today is really ask the staff to volunteer to come in to do some overtime to be trained on this system without all of the distraction of having the public in Licensing Authority, and they have agreed to do so,” Bradshaw explained.
The Authority has also reached out to retired licensing officers to assist with training and operations.
“There is one staff member who used to work here at Licensing, who’s retired, who decided on short notice to come back to assist us with the interface,” she said.
The weekend training sessions are expected to continue into the coming week and beyond.
“Today’s [Saturday] session is a full-day session. The intention is that we’re going to do afternoon sessions as well during the course of this week and we will also come back again next week to be able to do another full-day session,” the minister said.
The new system requires manual data entry and verification to protect personal information.
“Everything has to be by hand, so that was why we had to bring in persons to do data entry and to make sure that we can verify that information because we’re dealing with people’s personal information and data.
Further resources, she said, were also being deployed to address inspection delays, with mechanics being reassigned to assist.
“We also have a plan to bring in some of our mechanics who are working in the workshop to bring some of them over to assist with the inspections so that that process can flow a lot faster.”
Bradshaw did not want to commit to a firm deadline for a full resolution stating: “I don’t want to be premature in terms of saying when we will have this whole issue resolved. What is important is that we are taking the steps day by day to make sure that we can reduce it.”
She said, however, that while current registrations were being handled, the focus remained on clearing the backlog.
“The point I wanted to make was that we are current in terms of any current registrations, new registrations. What we have, though and what we are working on right now is really the backlog,” Bradshaw said as she reiterated that Government was monitoring progress closely and that further updates would be provided once the training phase is completed.
