Papua New Guinea is currently embarked on an ambitious five-year digital transformation plan to improve its government services and lay down digital public infrastructure. Business Advantage PNG hears from some of the key players on what’s been delivered and what we can expect next.
John Burke of Kyudo Growth (right) at the Innovation PNG 2025 conference in March. Credit: BAI.
In March this year, Papua New Guinea’s Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) – the lead agency implementing PNG’s Digital Government Plan, 2023–2027 – was recognised by the Innovation PNG Awards for the launch of a website allowing people to apply for police clearances online.
The service allows users to submit, pay for and track their police clearance application, without needing to visit a police station. Once approved, the user receives a digital certificate with a QR code which they can provide to prospective employers to verify its authenticity.
e-Portals
This service is part of a suite of digital services to be provided through a planned government-to-consumer e-portal which was successfully trialled last year, through Department’s Secretary Steven Matainaho told the March 2025 Innovation PNG conference in Port Moresby.
The trial e-portal also featured a wallet app for storing government-issued documents such as police clearances and high school graduation certificates, as well as a bill management system for water and electricity.
“We are targeting 15 to 20 services before we go live, hopefully around September this year,” Matainaho revealed.
“The government builds roads and businesses and citizens use that piece of infrastructure. Digital Public Infrastructure is the same.”
Notably, the trial included testing of PNG’s first-ever Digital ID. Matainaho announced shortly after the conference that his department was commencing its public rollout in collaboration with other government agencies, financial institutions, telecommunications providers and superannuation funds.
DICT is also working on a separate government-to-business portal which will streamline at least 15 regulatory agency processes into a single window, Matainaho said.
“The business process review has been completed and we are now going into some areas of tendering and development of that system. That will roll out over the next three-to-five years.”
AI decision making
Meanwhile, in March, PNG’s Immigration and Citizenship Services Authority (ICSA) launched an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to streamline its assessment of visa applications.
PNG received more than 130,000 visitors last year, and is expecting 200,000 visitors per year by 2027, according to its Tourism Promotion Authority.
With manual processing, visa applications would sit in queues for days or even weeks before review, according to James Inglis, Director at NiuPay, the Port Moresby-based firm which built ICSA’s AI platform.
Enter the new AI-driven document verification system, which ICSA is already using to make decisions on short-term visa applications.
“When someone submits an application, it automatically uses all the supporting documents: passports, photos, letters of support, tickets, everything. What used to take days or weeks happens now in minutes,” said Inglis, also speaking at Innovation PNG.
“What makes this different from regular automation is contextual understanding. It [AI] doesn’t just look at keywords and natural patterns; it interprets what documents mean in relation to each other, as well as how they relate to PNG’s immigration rules and requirements.”
Powering economic growth
The government’s embrace of digital transformation – which is being enabled by significant public and private sector investment in connectivity – is not just about improving efficiency, it is also critical to achieving economic diversity and financial inclusion, according to John Burke, Founder and Managing Director of management consulting firm Kyudo Growth.
Burke says the rollout of Digital ID would enable people to sign up for bank accounts and other services that are essential to becoming a part of the formal economy.
His firm has worked with DICT and Kumul Consolidated Holdings on qualifying the cost and economic benefits of digital public infrastructure (DPI) – which he likens to building a new road between a village and a town.
“The government builds roads and businesses and citizens use that piece of infrastructure. Digital Public Infrastructure is the same. It’s electronic, but it will provide the same capability to connect people and business to new opportunities,” he tells Business Advantage PNG.
Reflecting on a recent trip to Goroka in Eastern Highlands Province, Burke notes that its local university produces more than 1000 graduates per year – many of whom immediately become unemployed.
“Placing down that digital public infrastructure and fostering innovation at the fintech level creates an opportunity for those people to come out of university and really boot up their ideas and incubate them at scale – either for the local economy or to go regional or even global,” he says.
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