All workers in one computer - "Central Registry" put in operation one year after founding

Independent institution "Central Registry" is going to be, finally, put in operation although Serbian Government passed the Regulation on its founding last year and appointed Milica Danilović as its CEO six months ago.

People in this Agency, which will be "keeping" all data on workers and employers at one place, will soon finish the Rule book governing systematization and financial plan, while the adoption of the Law on central registry is in the pipeline. Once this institution is finally put in operation, as the joint project of several ministries, there will be no unnecessary walking from window to window any more.

- Central registry will unite all relevant data from the social security funds, Republic Medical Care Institute, National Employment Agency and Tax Administration - says CEO Milica Danilović.

People in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy explain that, in the near future, all information on the insurant - his medical and social security files, data from the employment agency and tax administration - will be kept at one place. With the establishment of the Central registry, all insurants would have to register only once, and all information would be immediately available to all key institutions. Similar systems are already in use in Croatia, Macedonia, Ireland, Austria...

How much money will be spent on this project is still the subject of speculations. Serbia has received an interest-free loan of 25m USD from the World Bank for reforms in the pension system, so that it is estimated that the major share of that loan would be spent on the Central Registry. However, it is still uncertain where the building will be situated and how many people will be working in it, but it is most likely that the largest amount of money will be spent on - software.

- Central registry is not going to be another bureaucratized institution - says Milica Danilović. - The point is that we want to hire as few people as possible, but we also want to form an excellent information system that would enable connecting with other agencies.

Personal security number

- Every man would get a randomly selected security number that does not contain any personal data, which is not the case with the unique identification number of citizens - Gerard Fitzpatrick, expert adviser, explained.

- Protection of personal data is in accordance with modern legislation, and unique identification number of citizens (JMBG) is no more in use in most countries because it contains certain personal information.

Old database

One of the largest databases in Serbia is in the Pension Fund of Serbia, which has about 4m users! Its information system, established few decades ago, was surpassed long time ago, while the main registry functions in the same way since 1970. Regardless of the circumstances, the workers were to process about 4,000 files a day.

(Note: complete text is taken over from newspaper "Novosti" of August 5th, 2009)