Cabinet has approved that the Ministry of Finance seek a soft loan from the EXIM Bank of China to finance phase 2 of the eGovernment project.

The Chinese government provided a concessional loan for the amount of $20 million to the Fiji government to fund phase 1 of the eGovernment project.

Cabinet made its decision on a submission by Prime Minister Commodore Vorege Bainimarama.

He said about 90% of the project has been physically completed as at the end of October.

He added phase 2 of the government project will be a continuation of the recommendations contained in the eGovernment Master Plan and focus on more deliveries, such as the creation of a national identity system, strengthening of border control solutions and improvement of national info-communications infrastructure.

According to Bainimarama, a major component of phase 2 of eGovernment will focus on the re-engineering of government processes that will assist in nationwide exercise such as rightsizing activities of the civil service.

He said it is anticipated that phase 2 of the eGovernment project begins in January 2010 and be completed by December 2012.