ISLAMABAD: Only 11 ministries and divisions of the federal government have yet to adopt the e-office system, but they are committed to its implementation by the end of next year subject to the release of funds by the finance ministry, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Infor­ma­tion Technology and Telecommunications was told on Tuesday.

Officials of the National Information Technology Board (NITB) informed the committee that e-office systems had so far been implemented in 31 ministries, including 48 departments, out of a total of 42 ministries and that implementation was pending in the remaining 11 ministries.

The NITB, a department of the Ministry of Info­rmation Technology and Telecom­muni­ca­tions, is mandated to undertake e-government initiatives at federal ministries, divisions and departments, including an e-office system which helps set-ups shift from manual to a paperless electronic system. The e-filing system in the e-office programme enables the electronic movement and tracking of files and the archival and retrieval of data.

The committee was informed that the delay in implementation of e-office systems in the remaining ministries was due to unavailability of required infrastructure in several ministries and departments, as many of their offices were situated in rented and temporary accommodations.

The procurement of required infrastructure was in the process and would be completed from budgetary allocations in the next fiscal year and subject to the release of funds by the finance ministry, the committee members were told.

The committee members expressed concern over the e-office programme’s delay due to non-issuance of funds by the finance ministry and it was decided that the committee would write to the finance ministry against the stoppage of e-office funds.

Digital records for cybercrimes

The committee members also raised a query over international social media platforms not responding to the requests made by Pakistan.

The committee was informed that the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) was the designated agency for requesting international cooperation under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) 2016.

Director of FIA’s Cybercrime Wing Mir­waiz Khan apprised the committee that investigation into transactional electronic cybercrime required records from digital platforms such as Google, Facebook, Twit­ter, Instagram, Microsoft and WhatsApp, among others.

“However, the servers of these companies are outside of Pakistan and the lack of provision of records from these companies often run into dead ends in our investigation,” he added. He suggested that Pakistan by signing mutual legal assistance treaty could access digital records. The FIA can even approach Interpol for seeking intelligence cooperation in cybercrime cases after the treaty was signed, he added.

Currently, the FIA Cybercrime Wing can seek or extend cooperation from any foreign government, international organisation or agency through the interior ministry for investigation into an offence under Peca.

The committee was also informed that several under-served localities in rural areas of Islamabad in terms of mobile telephony coverage had been identified by the Universal Service Fund (USF) and after approval from the federal government projects would be launched for the coverage of mobile broadband services to these areas.

The USF was established by the Pakistani government under the Ministry of Information Technology to develop telecommunication services throughout the country.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2019