The Ministry of Information Technology on Friday claimed that the ministry was progressing on its E-office programme strictly in accordance with the contract agreement signed between Electronic Government Directorate (EGD) and LMKR for development of E-office software.
"The project was launched on 13th November 2004 at a cost of Rs 6.642 million only (and not multi billions of rupees) for software development for 135 users, however, it could not be finalised due to various factors. Since 2009, things have been fast tracked and one segment of the project, ie e-office suit - has been approved," he added.
A spokesman of the ministry of information technology told APP that a news item published in a section of the press were incorrect, misleading and based on malafide intent. He said it was incorrect to say that some fact-finding report, on the issue of violation of contract by the vendor, was submitted to federal government.
"Neither any fact-finding enquiry was held, nor was any such report submitted to the Senate Standing Committee's meeting held on 19.08.2010. It is also incorrect to state that tendering parameters of the project were changed and PPRA Rules were violated to benefit some vendor," he asserted. As to establishment of Data Centre, the ministry has recently submitted the revised PC-I of the Data Centre to the planning and development division and things are being fast tracked, added the spokesman of the ministry.
However, he did not respond to the assertion that the federal government was losing its proprietary and intellectual rights over the project for electronic office (E-Office) software and application to private vendors because of poor monitoring of project implementation, resulting in huge payments for automation of government departments and line ministries.
The spokesman also did not contest the notion that the contract required that "after successful conduction of acceptance test on software by the customer (MOIT), the software supplied pursuant to the contract will become the property of the customer."
"The contractor will be bound to provide the source code to customer for usage and modification for its own use and train the customer staff so that some modification can be done on customer side." Being the property of the federal government, the software was then to be provided to provincial governments and government agencies free of cost by the government for improved working efficiency.
However, the vendor started selling the software to government agencies independently and when some intelligence agencies wanted to get the software from the MOIT for security reasons instead of the private vendor, it suddenly came to light that the MOIT was unable to provide the facility because the vendor had not provided source code to the government, which was in violation of the contract. The MOIT, however, put the issue under the carpet.
"The ownership of the product including source code in case of bespoke solution and services rendered under any contract, arising as a result of this RFQ (request for qualification), will be the property of the MOIT, government of Pakistan", said the contract.
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