Under the five-year masterplan, iGov2010, the government will invest $2 billion to transform backend processing to achieve front-end efficiency and effectiveness, said Raymond Lim (left), Minister for Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and Foreign Affairs.
Currently, establishments have to use different identification numbers when interacting with different public sector agencies. The more commonly used identifiers include the ACRA number issued by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority to registered companies, businesses and limited liability partnerships, the ROS number issued by Registry of Societies to registered societies, the Central Registration (CR) number issued by the Department of Statistics to various categories of establishments as required for survey or statistical purposes, and the CPF employer number issued by the Central Provident Fund Board to all employers.
Having a UEI for establishments in Singapore will reduce the number of identifiers that establishments have to use. A UEI will provide a common means of identifying establishments across public sector agencies, and enable public sector agencies to share basic non-confidential information on establishments more effectively to deliver better and more personalised services. “The UEI is like an NRIC number for enterprises,” said Lim Hup Seng, Deputy Secretary (Performance), Ministry of Finance.
To minimise changes needed, the ACRA number which is issued to about 85 per cent of establishments today will be leveraged on to be the UEI for businesses and local companies registered with ACRA. The remaining 15 per cent of establishments such as societies, embassies, local representative offices of foreign companies, and management corporations which do not have ACRA numbers (as they are not registered with ACRA) will be issued with a new 10-digit identifier as their UEI.
An open tender will be called in the first quarter of 2007 for the setting up of a UEI issuance system and development of conversion tools. By January 2009, all establishments will be issued with a UEI.
To facilitate the transition to UEI, conversion software that maps the UEI to existing identifiers will be provided to public, private and social sector agencies.
Autor/Author: Kenneth Liew
Quelle/Source: Computerworld Singapore, 09.-22.06.2006
