The public will soon be able to pay traffic fines through Govpay, the recently introduced official online payment platform for government-related services, a top official of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) said.

ICTA Board Member, leading technology entrepreneur and impact investor Harsha Purasinghe revealed that ICTA is working to enable this service, which will bring significant relief to motorists.

“We will soon see that traffic fines can also be paid through the platform. We are working on it,” he said at a forum held in Colombo recently.

Government sources confirmed that ICTA has already completed the preliminary work and expects to sign a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) soon.

The Sri Lankan government launched the Govpay digital payment platform to facilitate secure and convenient digital transactions for various government-related services, including taxes, fines, utility bills, education fees and other fees. The platform streamlines transactions by eliminating the need for in-person payments at government offices.

Purasinghe recalled that when the new ICTA board was recently appointed, Govpay was immediately identified as a less effective service. He noted that although it had already been piloted, it was shelved for unknown reasons. After considerable effort and coordination with several other institutions, Govpay was finally launched to the public with many new features in a short period of time.

“When we launched Govpay on the 7th, we had 16 government organizations on board. Today, we have 25 organizations. Every week, we are adding new government organizations,” Purasinghe added.

He also highlighted the challenges the new ICTA board faced during its inception, as many employees had left the organization and ICTA was set to be closed down. However, the new government reactivated the organization through a cabinet decision.

The new ICTA board is working without taking salaries, demonstrating their commitment to driving digital transformation in the country.

“So, we were actually climbing on a dead body. People had pretty much given up. Many of them had left, while others were waiting for the liquidation process to take place.

“You can imagine what happened to us, as there were a lot of challenges in recruiting people, as it was set to be closed down. But our dynamic board team, led by Dr. Hans Wijesuriya, was able to find ways,” he explained.

Under the new government, ICTA is set to be replaced by a new digital institutional framework.