ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday reported a Rs1.5 billion scandal to a senate panel.

The agency said that 13 government departments including the Capital Development Authority (CDA), have not fully implemented e-governance projects, for which hundreds of computers were purchased but not even switched on.

“Lack of planning and leadership resulted in the programme failing. Government assets were wasted, which is an offence,” FIA Director General Dr Mazharul Haq Kakakhel told the Senate Committee on Information Technology.

After a complaint was lodged by the IT ministry, Dr Kakakhel was investigating irregularities in 13 Public Sector Development Programme funded projects of the National Information Technology Board.

Around 70pc of the Rs1.5 billion had been spent on software and hardware and the remaining on hiring consultants for the e-governance projects.

The e-governance programme is a project of the IT ministry and was started 10 years ago in 13 government departments, none of which was fully implemented. The e-governance initiative encouraged a paperless environment in offices.

However, the FIA inquiry was a year late as, according to Dr Kakakhel, the agency lacked capacity to investigate the technically new and difficult subject of IT.

“We constituted an eight member joint investigation team, which included forensic and procurement experts as well as seasoned investigators,” Dr Kakakhel told the committee, adding that 13 different inquiries were initiated for quicker results, including one for the CDA.

The forensic team is inspecting some 45 servers and 500 computers, printers and paraphernalia including software at the CDA premises. Warranties for the purchased items have expired, a government official told members of the committee.

“Because the hardware and software were not utilised by the CDA, the lapse of warranty will cause a loss to the national exchequer,” the official explained.

Dr Kakakhel said that it was also strange that the CDA brought in IT consultants from Nespak, which provides nationwide engineering services. Senators Syed Shibli Faraz and Rubina Khalid, also questioned Nespak’s role in IT related initiatives.

“Corruption, money trails and who benefitted from the e-governance projects in the CDA are being determined. The team will be submitting a conclusive report by Dec 15 and the FIA will have more conclusive answers for the committee by then,” Dr Kakakhel said.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2016