More than 200 employees from Regional Democratic Councils (RDCs) nationwide have undergone training under the government’s national ICT initiative to strengthen digital service delivery and improve data processing and governance at the local level.
The programme, spearheaded by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), forms part of a wider effort to build digital capacity in the 10 regions through the establishment of ICT hubs and structured training in both communities and government agencies.
OPM’s Project Manager, Ronald Harsawack, explained that it is important to equip frontline public servants with the necessary skills to manage digital services and citizen data effectively.
“We recognise that the RDC people are the frontline people in these communities, and it is only fitting that if we train the community members, we have to train the service providers as well to learn how to deal with data that comes in and the backend processing,” Harsawack stated.
He noted that the training provided to RDC and public service personnel is more advanced than community-level sessions, focusing on data handling, service delivery systems, and efficient digital reporting back to central government ministries.
According to Harsawack, some 204 public servants have been trained to date, ensuring that regional offices are better equipped to receive, process, and respond to citizen requests more efficiently and transparently.
The initiative aligns with the government’s broader push to modernise public administration and reduce bureaucratic delays through digital transformation.
During his press conference after being re-elected for a second term, President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali outlined an ambitious national digitisation agenda to deliver an integrated digital government system.
The president noted that his administration is working to ensure most government services are fully digitised before the end of the second quarter of 2026, enabling citizens to access key services such as passports, birth certificates, driver’s licences, and national identification through unified online platforms.
He also emphasised that the transformation is intended to improve service delivery, enhance efficiency, and bring government services closer to citizens, particularly in remote and hinterland communities.
The ICT training of RDC officials is therefore seen as a critical pillar in supporting this national vision, ensuring digital systems introduced at the community level are effectively managed and sustained by trained public officers across all regions.