ISLAMABAD: National Flood Response and Coordination Centre (NFRCC) has suggested the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication to engage the services of Dr Umar Saif or any 3rd party to assist National Information Technology Board on development of flood related dashboard.
Sources said that NFRCC has communicated to the Ministry of IT&T and the Planning Commission with regard to unsatisfactory performance on dashboard development by NITB.
In light of dashboard demonstration to secretary IT on October 8, 2022, it is informed that NITB team is not meeting the expected level of performance on development of NFRCC dashboard, as per direction of Prime Minister, it is therefore suggested that Dr Umar Saif or any 3rd party be engaged to assist NITB on development of dashboard, the letter added.
It is pertinent to note that the Prime Minister on October 3, 2022 refused to inaugurate the digital dashboard developed by NITB and have given 7 days to complete the dashboard in accordance to meet international standards.
Source said that the development of the dashboard is still underway and NITB is unable to complete the work within the time frame directed to the IT Ministry by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
NITB remained in hot waters in recent days due to installation of Indian company software in tablets given to cabinet members.
Recently, the Economic Coordination Committee of cabinet deferred the summary of the ministry of IT with regard to the replacement of NRTC tablets used for cabinet portals with the new smart/latest tablets.
One can judge the seriousness of the ministry of IT that most of the high ups reached Dubai to participate in the Gitex conference, instead of complying with the PM directives on development of the dashboard, sources added.
On the other hand, the high ups of the ministry tasked the same officials of NITB to complete the remaining work who had failed to brief PM for development of flood related dashboard.
It is pertinent to note that a five days Gitex conference has started in Dubai and sources claimed that a number of foreign or local tech companies have sponsored the tour of Pakistani officials working in different ministries.
It is pertinent to note that the Cabinet in June this year also imposed a complete ban on official visits by government officials, functionaries and ministries as austerity measures.
Only obligatory visits and very important bilateral visits will be allowed and a committee would decide the importance of each visit before giving approval, decided by cabinet.
The spokesperson of ministry of IT Junaid Imam on the query of this scribe said that Ministry is a policy making body while NITB is the execution arm of ministry for any development work.
NFRCC is the end user while NITB is their service provider. NFRCC agreed on a user requirement on which NITB developed the dashboard. Now there are new requirements on the direction of the PM so NITB will amend the dashboard accordingly.
No Official from the Ministry participated officially in Gitex at any private company’s expense, he claimed.
Contracting the member IT point of view, the ministry of IT&T also tweeted that “Federal Minister for IT and Telecom Syed Amin Ul Haque visiting Huawei Cloud booth at the #GITEXGLOBAL2022 event in #Dubai. Senior officers from the #MOII were also present. This visit is the third by the minister with Huawei after #GitEX last year and this year’s MWC”.
