TECHNOLOGY-CARIBBEAN: Nabbing the Y2K Bug

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Dionne Jackson Miller

MONTEGO BAY, Jul 15 1999 (IPS) - Come Jan 1, 2000, Lyndon Arnold fully expects to be in high spirits, ringing in the New Year at his usual New Years Eve Party with family and friends.

That should reassure many residents of the tiny island of St. Lucia, as Arnold is the country’s national Y2K coordinator.

The Y2K bug refers to the inability of many older computer programmes to recognise the year 2000 as a new year.

These programmes store years in two-digit date fields, 98 for 1998 for example, and are expected to go haywire when the year 2000 comes around. They may be unable to read the 00 designation as a new year, translating it for example as 1900.

This has spawned fears of countless glitches in payrolls, insurance calculations, and computers located in medical, transport and all the other machines now routinely used in everyday life.

But in St. Lucia, Arnold is not worried. ôI dont expect to be in any panicked mood,ö he says. ôI think St. Lucia is well prepared, we will have power, so the party will go on, we will have phones, so we can call and email our counterparts from around the world and tell them whats happening.ö

As the countrys national Y2K coordinator, he is responsible for ensuring that the parties go on, for making sure that life in St. Lucia can continue effectively after the date change from Dec 31, 1999 to Jan 1, 2000 hits computer systems world wide.

And at this point, he seems fairly confident that life in St. Lucia will continue, and continue comfortably. ôWhere we are right now, we shouldnt have any problems,ö he says. ôThe major infrastructural sectors have almost completed their work, and the assurances are that they will be ready.ö

Like St. Lucia, most of the Caribbean countries are insisting that critical sectors will be Y2K compliant by D-day.

Multinationals like monopoly telecommunications provider Cable and Wireless, and many of the international banks have externally driven compliance programmes, international agencies are driving and monitoring compliance of air and sea transportation, and governments are placing emphasis on areas like energy, financial services and health.

Carol Roach is the assistant Y2K project manager in The Bahamas. She says the project team has been working hard and the government is confident that it is prepared.

ôWhat were doing now is working on our contingency plans, especially for the priority public agencies, as well as the utilities, so come Dec 31, like everybody else, were just going to watch the clock roll over and judge from there whats going to happen.ö

In Jamaica, stated deadlines include August for Cable and Wireless and critical areas in health, and September for many financial institutions.

The government is, however, depending on an in-depth audit to be carried out over the next six weeks, for an accurate assessment of whether those deadlines will be met.

“We will identify at that time, if they are at the levels at which they (say) they are…” says Director General in the Ministry of Commerce and Technology Camilla Rhone. ô

If they are not (ready), we will be giving them guidance as to what they should do to ensure that when the year comes around, they can still carry out their functions. In other words, we will be focusing on contingency planning and disaster mitigation, and in that way the public will be assured that there won’t be any disruption of service when the year comes around.ö

One Y2K specialist has, however, expressed concerns about the late start which many Caribbean companies seem to have made in addressing their Y2K problems.

Belize, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados are among the countries that set up their national Y2K committees in 1998, while the British Virgin Islands brought its national coordinator on board in February. In many cases, testing of critical systems is still continuing, a situation about which Jim Picard, Business Director at the Miami-based Y2K consulting firm PPR has expressed concern.

ôThe late start doesnt give you enough time to do the full range of things you need (to do), to be Y2K compliant on the first of January,ö he says.

ôEven in a best-case scenario, if youre a large organisation or government, theres virtually no chance that you will be totally Y2K compliant on the first of January.ö

However, Caribbean representatives contend that working in their favour is the small size of their countries. Some have fewer than 20,000 inhabitants, and with a population of 2.5 million, Jamaica is the largest in the English-speaking area.

They say the size of the countries limits the numbers of systems that need fixing, and also say that the lifestyle in many islands remains relatively simple, with comparatively limited dependence on computerisation.

One area to which the Caribbean countries appear to be paying scant attention, however, is the potential for litigation, despite possible exposure through their tourism-dependent economies. The United States is now looking at Y2K legislation which would include putting a liability cap on certain kinds of lawsuits, and establishing a period during which repairs can be made.

But some Caribbean governments say they have no time to try to implement similar measures. “Transparency, honesty about whatever your status is, is more important than trying to say that you are ready,” argues Jamaicas Camilla Rhone.

ôIf you tell people that you are 100 percent ready, that everybody can come and all will be well, and something goes wrong because you had gone out and said you were ready when you had not gone through the proper checks and remediation processes, but because you thought it was a good marketing tool – you’re going to end up in trouble,” she adds.

With under 200 days left, public education has become another hot topic. Many people still have no idea what the Y2K bug is, and how it can affect their lives.

Journalists in many Caribbean countries have also complained of the difficulty in getting information out of their governments and private sectors. That situation, at least, is likely to change dramatically over the next few months as governments scramble to tell the world of their progress, and private sector companies try to get the word of their Y2K compliance out to their clients.

But persuading many Caribbean nationals that the Y2K bug could be a serious problem may prove to be a huge task. ôBack home, people call Y2K ‘why, who cares’,” says one journalist from Belize.