E-Transactions/E-Payment Bills coming next year

The Guyana Government is aiming to introduce laws in the new year to better govern electronic transactions and payments, Attorney General Anil Nandlall has announced.
According to him, Government would introduce in the National Assembly 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.
“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,” he explained during his programme “Issues in the News”.
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, and 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.