ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary body on Wednesday directed the National Information Technology Board (NITB) to implement its decade old e-governance project in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in two weeks or face action by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

“We can see that CDA is resisting an automated environment where it will not be able to hide malpractices of its officials. After two weeks, the committee will direct FIA to start making arrests,” said chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology, Awami National Party Senator Shahi Syed.

After a complaint lodged by the IT ministry, the FIA had started an investigation into irregularities in 13 Public Sector Development Program funded projects of NITB.

The agency said that the 13 government departments, including CDA, have not fully implemented e-governance projects for which hundreds of computers were purchased but were never even switched on.

The e-governance program is a project of the IT ministry and was started 10 years ago in 13 government departments to encourage a paperless environment, none of which were fully implemented. The case was brought to the attention of the committee by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Senator Azam Swati. The non-implementation of the project has cost the government more than Rs1.5 billion, the committee was told.

The FIA has been assigned to investigate the reasons for the failure to implement the e-governance project in all 13 departments separately, starting with the CDA. Some 150 computers and related paraphernalia purchased by the CDA have been stolen over the years, the warranties of the surviving equipment have expired and storage devices are now non-functional.

During the meeting, FIA Deputy Director Ejaz Ahmed Khan claimed that lack of interest on the part of CDA management and LMK Resources, which was engaged by the CDA to automate its offices, was the reason the project has not been implemented.

LKMR Vice President Research and Development said his company can have the project up and running in two weeks but providing absolutely trouble free systems will take four to six months.

After an FIA investigation, an FIR was registered against the owner of LKMR, Atif Rais, NITB Executive Director Syed Raza Abbas, NITB project director Faisal Kamran and CDA Consultant IT and Management Division Dr Athar Mansoor.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2018