THAT THE COMPLETION OF A TRANSACTION NOT DEPEND ON THE WILL OF A GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE
THE ASPIRATION OF A GOVERNMENT IN PROCESS OF MODERNIZATION

by: Victórico Rodríguez Reyes
Principal Officer
Government of the State of Colima 

Word and PDF versions.  Original paper available in Spanish only

In the last three decades government services have entered into an excessive bureaucratic process due to several reasons.  Some of these include: an increase in the demand for services; a disproportionate growth in human resources in government offices; the inexistence of reengineering of processes; the lack of training programs based on the needs of the institution; the lack of adequate processes on registering and accessing government information; and a a significant increase in corruption on the part of government officials and even on the part of the users of the services. The transactions relating to government services were processed in several days and even months, and required an excessive amount of documents, and the intervention of many people in the process of something as simple as a civil registry or a property and transportation registry. 

As a result of this excessive bureaucratic process, the government of Colima took the initiative to start a process of modernizing government transactions and procedures. The first step taken in the process of modernizing the public administration with respect to government services in the state of Colima was in the services that were offered by the Transportation Authority. Through this process, the owners of vehicles with accurate registration papers were sent to their homes the account statements in order to make the corresponding payments which could be made through banks, thus avoiding long lines and several days to complete the transaction.  

The second important project was the modernization of the State’s Civil Registry. This was important because it had a great impact on the citizens and because it constitutes the defining element in the systematization of government services. The federal government provided financial assistance in the capture of all historic records of the civil registry.  This has provided us with a flexible, timely and trustworthy registry and the precision with which to register citizens and to know exactly what type of government services they require.  

An important advance in the integral modernization of the civil registry was the assignment of the CURP (Unique Identifying Number to Register the Population). The federal government envisioned it as the unique identifier of each individual, and the state government of Colima as the access key to other services, identifying unequivocally all individuals. Assigning the CURP represented a significant cost for the administration, but the benefits were greater. By assigning a CURP, the government was able to immediately establish contact with that individual and thus making it possible to validate the quality of the information contained in the civil registry so that it could later be incorporated into other state government databases and linked to basic government services such as health, education, public security, housing, and transportation, among others. Moreover, this process helped to make the population aware of the importance of having registration documents to be able to obtain government services. 

Other important aspects in the provision of government services are the Property Registry, and Commerce and Cadastre, all which give juridical and territorial certainty of a property. These records represent the basis of accessing precise information needed to know where to provide services, and therefore have the ability to plan several aspects as sustainable development and carry out an an inventory of the high risk zones. 

To achieve these goals, the state administration considered four fundamental elements for any type of modernization to be carried out in the public administration. These are: reengineering of processes, standardization of information, security in the transactions, and reforms to the existing legislation. These elements have led the government of the State of Colima to envision a different structure for the provision of government services, renewing the concept of unique government desk for the concept of virtual government desk for the provision of public services.  

This modernization project has not lost sight of replacing the means for the end – the end being the services and the means comprising both the information and the technology.  If only one an Internet-based technology was used, services would not reach the entire population as not everyone has access to the Internet. Consequently, government kiosks have been created in public spaces. They are all linked to the Internet and offer the following services:  certified copies re on-line and offer the following services: certified copies of birth / death / marriage certificates, certificate of tax exemptions, letters of no previous criminal record, proof of elementary and high school education, account statements on car payments, and renewal of driving licenses. All this is done through the CURP to verify the information provided by the person requesting the document with the information on the government databases, and thus confirming his/her right to the service. Moreover, in the same transaction, the person can make the corresponding payment and immediately receive the desired and legally certified document.

It will be necessary to keep improving the security in the provision of services, and for this reason the use of the fingerprint will be gradually implemented. The validity of the information will be confirmed initially with the CURP, and then the fingerprint will serve to confirm the legitimacy of the person.

In Colima the vision is to bring the government and the citizens closer together through the government services kiosks, in order to eliminate the duplication of procedures and bureaucratic processes, aiming to create transparency and eliminate corruption.

The permanent mission is “that the completion of a transaction does not depend on the will of a government employee” and one of the satisfying results achieved to date has been through the survey on Corruption and Good Government carried out in 2001 by Transparency Mexico (national chapter of Transparency International) which places Colima as the state with the lowest index of corruption in the country.