Work permit applications to go digital by end of August
This service is expected to reduce the long lines, congestion and waiting times at the Department of Immigration.
This announcement was made at the July 16, 2019 Fifth Sitting of the First Session of The Fourth House of Assembly (HoA) by the Minister for Natural Resources, Labour and Immigration Honourable Vincent O. Wheatley (R9).
While giving a statement in the HoA, Hon Wheatley said, “Mr Speaker, as we move into the second quarter of 2019, I am pleased to say that the Department of Labour and Workforce Development, which played a key role in phase one of the E-Government initiative to bring government services online, is ready to roll out the work permit online [service] to the people of the Virgin Islands.”
According to Hon Wheatley, by late August 2019 the business community would be able to submit work permit applications, make payments and receive updates and notifications of the status of their work permits online.
“This, Mr Speaker, is a step in the right direction for the Department of Immigration and the Department of Labour and Workforce Development.”
More upgrades coming
Meanwhile, Hon Wheatley said a number of upgrades will be coming to the Department of Immigration.
This first phase of development in the department came after testing the system approximately four months ago. On April 4, 2019 Government kicked start a prototype of its new work permit online system in its infancy stage of being designed to tackle the many challenges associated with the processing of permit applications.
It was at that launch that Premier and Minister of Finance Honourable Andrew A. Fahie (R1) classified the process as an “agile approach”.
The testing phase saw the participation of 32 businesses that were required to upload new work permit applications and accompanying documentation including passport pages, medical and police records to the system.
Premier Fahie had said, “This means we have built a prototype for the testing phase of the electronic processing of new work permit applications and are requiring interfacing by various businesses and companies throughout the territory to help us develop the system to make it work for them.”
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