Public data should be free and available for all citizens. The institutions that possess public data must accept that these data belong to the public and not the institutions themselves. Business models based on selling public data should be reformed, the policy of open data should be obligatory for all institutions on central and local level. Centralized planning of data infrastructure under unique entity is needed so that consistency, efficiency and interoperability among state institutions is secured as well as the participation of the civil society in the digital transformation.
These are some of the draft recommendations coming out of today’s 3rd session of the Working group 6-Anticorruption (Chapter 5-Public procurements, Chapter 18-Statistics and Chapter 32-Financial control) on the topic: “Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Public Financial Management” held in Skopje.
In her introduction, Mileva Gjurovska, president of the European movement in the Republic of North Macedonia has emphasized that much consideration is needed while approaching towards the development of the digital transformation.
„The recommendations of EU are referring to involving the public sector so that big basis of data can be completed. It should be taken into consideration that digital transformation should be in line with all EU policies that we have brought in national context”, Gjurovska said, adding that it can not be expected that digital transformation will heal all diseases in the socity.
Aleksandar Krzalovski from the Macedonian center for international cooperation has pointed out that according to surveys, the corruption has been one of the biggest problems in the state in the past two years. Through concrete examples, Krzalovski has addressed the miss advantages in using public services in the state that should have been digitalized.
Stefan Andonovski, the minister for digital transformation in his speech said that the higher the degree of digitalization, the more resilient state to influences.
According to him, artificial intelligence cannot happen if the institutions are not connected and do not communicate between themselves.
Andonovski emphasized that digitalization of all registries is needed as well as connection of the institutions in a unique system that will address the risk of corruptipn and the conflict of interests.
Jüri Kivimäe, data analyst in the Intelligence Department of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board in Tallinn talked about the use of the digital tools and artificial intelligence in Estonia.
„Today we have wide range of public services available on internet. You can check your medical records, to file documents for building permits etc. In 2011 we introduced mobile personal ID-s after which we introduced personal ID-s with authentification“, Kivimäe explains, elaborating that through the use of digital tools numerous services are available, among which automated transcription of the titles on national tv stations in real time or use of satellite photos.
Elena Petrova, the director of the Public Revenue Office of the Republic of North Macedonia said that the Revenue office has made some progress in automatization of the processes.
Petrova emphasized that the Revenue office is facing new challenge to implement more secure systems, such as electronic invoice or electronic issuing documents so that bigger efficiency can be achieved.
„The digital transformation will enable the services to be easy accessible with improved standards of the quality compared to the physical issuing invoices in the Revenue office. With the digitalization of the processes we will be closer to reaching the principle for each tax payer to pay the exact amount in the exact time“, Petrova said.
Boro Jakimovski, the dean Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering in Skopje believes that strategic approach in building centralized automated systems is needed.
„We have releatively good alignment with EU legislative“, Jakimovski stated, adding that the quality and free data are key for digital transformation.
According to Jakimovski, big obstacle in the process of digital transformation is the fact that the data in our country is being paid.
Dragan Tevdovski, professor at the Faculty of economics within the University “St. Cyril and Methodius“ in Skopje pointed out that it should be considered how to involve the artificial intelligence in our system of public finances.
Tevdovski stressed that in the process of use of artificiall intelligence in the institutions the most important are the people.
Dime Galapcev, representative of the Economic chamber of North Macedonia and co-founder and CEO of “FinqUp” highlighted the importance of the data, which he said should be publicly available.
„The artificial intelligence is as good as good are the data. We must make the processes to be automated“, Galapcev said.
Mila Josifovska Danilovska, program manager in Metamorphosis Foundation underlined the importance of the digitalization that needs to be priority.
„This means that the processes and the services should be improved with the use of digital solutions inside the institutions and the institutions with the citizens“, Josifovska Danilovska emphasized. According to her, the modernization and the introduction of digital technologies should not be switched only to IT people, but all stakeholders should be involved.
It is crucial for institutional networking and connection to be enabled so that digitalization of processes can be secured and by that bigger efficiency in the work of the institutions, the experts at today’s session concluded.
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