Brazilian government investing to go digital

Bureaucracy has traditionally been a constant presence in Brazilian life, taking its toll on both citizens and companies—who spend 1,958 hours a year dealing with red-tape related to the country’s tax system. With that in mind, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes has made reducing excessive bureaucracy a key priority for the government, in a bid to increase productivity and boost the country’s still-ailing economy.

The first steps in this direction have already been taken. In August, the federal government launched a new online portal gathering every website belonging to the administration on a single hub. So far, Gov.br—as the new site is called—includes pages for citizen services, the president’s office, and the sitting government’s website.

According to the Economy Ministry—which oversees the digitization efforts—by the end of 2020, 1,600 websites will be part of this new portal, where more than 1,000 digital services will be available to Brazilian. Data from August 2019 shows that 182 federal public bodies currently offer 3,274 services—46.5 percent of which are fully digital, and another 19.8 percent are partially digital.

By way of Gov.br, citizens will be able to find centralized information about services such as passport issuance, international vaccination cards, and almost all of the services provided by social security systems, as well as the main news involving the federal government. However, ministries will maintain their separate webpages and social networks.

Until the end of 2020, the government expects to spend BRL 43 million on the project, but the investment is...