ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for IT Anusha Rehman has recommended the arrest of all the Capital Development Authority (CDA) officials responsible for stealing computers and other hardware that resulted in the failure to implement the government’s e-governance project.

Ms Rehman asked the Senate Standing Committee on IT to direct the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to recover the stolen equipment, which she said was worth millions of rupees, by arresting CDA officials.

The committee met on Tuesday for a briefing on the FIA’s actions against LMK Resources, a private company that was a CDA vendor for the e-governance project, as well as authority officials and officials from the National Information Technology Board (NITB) who were responsible for violating rules and embezzling project funds.

The FIA has been investigating irregularities in 13 Public Sector Development Programme-funded NITB projects following a complaint from the Ministry of IT.

More than 150 out 500 hardware items purchased for e-governance programme stolen by staff, CDA chairman tells Senate panel

The agency said the 13 government departments, including the CDA, had not fully implemented the e-governance programme for which hundreds of computers were purchased but were left unused.

The e-governance programme is an IT ministry project that began 10 years ago in 13 departments to encourage a paperless environment.

The matter of the programme’s lack of implementation was brought to the committee’s attention by Senator Azam Swati, who said the project has cost the government over Rs1.5 billion.

The FIA has been assigned to look into the reasons for the failure of programme’s implementation in all 13 departments separately, starting with the CDA.

According to CDA Chairman Sheikh Anser Aziz, of the 500 computers, servers and other paraphernalia purchased by his office, over 150 computers had been stolen by staff.

“The CDA has not conducted any internal inquiry. Since the case was forwarded to the FIA, the CDA is dependent on the investigation agency,” he said.

Committee chairman Senator Shahi Syed said the CDA was resisting change and afraid of transparency.

“When all the other offices and departments are getting automated, the CDA was afraid of computerisation that would have brought transparency, and the civic authority would not be able to hide its wrongdoings.

“A lot of hard work and public money has been wasted under the environment-friendly e-governance programme. We will find out who was responsible for embezzling public funds and bring them to justice,” he added.

Senator Rehman Malik, however, said the problem could be resolved if the private vendor hired by the authority fulfilled its commitment and delivered the necessary software.

LMK Resources Vice President Research and Development Haroon Sharif had assured the committee that the company would fulfill its commitment to deliver the software at any moment, but alleged that the CDA was resistant to change and opposed to automation.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2017