By mid-month around 40 staffers from the Mayor and City Council’s (M&CC) Information Technology (IT) Department and Treasurer’s Department among others would have received training for a modernised computerised system at City Hall.
A release yesterday from City Hall said that for the next two weeks four staffers will be trained daily by Richard Langford, Head of Innosys; a local software company developing new computer software that will improve Council’s financial management.
The Revenue Collection and Management System (RCMS) is said to be 80 percent complete and is expected to be running in a matter of weeks. Adunni Christian, the Council’s Network Administrator was reported in the release as saying that the RCMS has been in the making for some time and its primary aim is to “tighten Council’s accountability and handling of revenue.” He said that there are many benefits from the system particularly in the area of revenue collection, transaction/information management, and customer service.
Christian said that currently, the Council’s system is an old one and is “extremely limited in the number of tasks that can be performed at one time”. He said that while RCMS will be a “response web-based application”, the existing system is desktop based. He said that this meant that whatever is done could only be accessed on that particular computer. For example, he said that the collection of rates and taxes is currently done by one cashier since the desktop application for such transactions is on that particular computer and cannot be easily accessed by other systems. This, he said, hampers the information flow and creates long customer lines.
Christian said in the press release, “This new software seeks to adjust these constraints by allowing multiple cashiers to access the software at one time allowing for better service.”
Apart from this, the release said that the software allows authorities to better track all revenue movements and access information through better system integration.
Other RCMS benefits, the Administrator noted includes the accommodation of payment options with financial institutions, the management of Municipal subventions and disbursements.
Town Clerk Royston King said in the press release that Council is interested in solidifying its accountability and transparency capabilities as part of its image improvement programme.
