Sorry state of ICT public-private partnerships

In spite of the current controversy surrounding the LTO and its technology partner, Stradcom, drivers’ licenses continue to be renewed in Land Transportation Offices located in malls and other public places. NBI clearances, prior to the current situation, were also issued in many satellite facilities around the country. Similarly if one needed an authenticated birth certificate, he or she can call a number and have it delivered after paying the necessary fees to their bank. All these are examples of government partnerships with the private sector in the delivery of services to the public.

During his State of the Nation Address, President Aquino identified PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships) as the main strategy of his government in achieving his goals for infrastructure development.

PPP has become a battle cry of the current administration to achieve many of its development programs. Sadly, very little have been said about how the strategy can be applied to ICT in government. Perhaps this is partly because controversy has tainted the success of past projects like the drivers’ licensing system of LTO and fairly recently, the NBI clearance system.

E-government projects in other countries have availed of this scheme to accelerate the development of computerized systems in the delivery of vital government services. Lifting an excerpt from the website of the US National PPP Council:

“This is the age of information technologies, but there can be a hefty cost of getting a system operating. Through public-private partnerships, many governments are now able to fully participate in “E-government” with their constituents, or effectively coordinate government activities and budgets. Better service, improved tools and saving money are exactly what public-private partnerships are all about.”

The Build Operate Transfer (BOT) law was what allowed the LTO and NBI projects to be implemented. However, having been enacted to address major infrastructure investments, some provisions of the BOT Law do not necessarily fit many ICT projects. This is perhaps the reason why a number of them under the BOT scheme have either failed or have been interminably delayed. Because the projects involved high cost infrastructure which were not direct components of the ICT solution (land, buildings, roadway, etc.), traditional IT vendors have shied away from these “mega-projects” and became merely subcontractors rather than the prime contractor.

The PPP model more applicable to ICT would be projects that include only ICT products and services without physical infrastructure. In implementing E-government, agencies can outsource the operations, management, and maintenance to private sector. Instead of investing on facilities such as a building and computer rooms, government can utilize existing private sector IT Data Centers and outsource the systems and application development to application service providers.

This approach will also remove the necessity of government agencies maintaining an ICT organization. The salary scales in government are not competitive with IT professionals in the private sector. Instead of high level IT skills, what is needed will now be familiarity with government processes that need to be automated, e.g., definition of requirements and the scope of the ICT solutions, project management, and development of service level agreements with the outsourcing provider.

We have always positioned the Philippines as the world’s preferred destination for outsourcing, be it in the form of call centers, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), or Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). It is time we move to the realm of GPO (Government Processes Outsourcing) using public-private partnership which will accelerate the development of E-government and eventually allow us to graduate to E-governance.

ICT: Is government support lacking?

As a strong proponent of ICT, I am obviously disappointed in the recent demotion of ICT to the level of undersecretary in the Department of Science and Technology. Marife Zamora of Convergys (with total employment of 25,000) recently informed me that the industry revenue was $9 billion. In comparison, tourism revenue was $2.5 billion. Tourism does indeed deserve more government focus and support especially when compared to our ASEAN neighbors. But I do not understand why the ICT industry deserves less government focus and support. It is my hope that the Office of the President, perhaps through the Executive Secretary, will be directly involved in ICT policy, particularly in the area of E-governance. My comments on PPP or rather GPO (Government Processes Outsourcing) are worthy of consideration.

ADB report critical of PPP

The Daily Tribune of Thursday July 21 reported that “the ADB report, written by Aquino’s own Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga, was a critique of the flagship PPP program of the government in which it stated that in the Philippines, PPPs have typically been shunned by business because of unclear policy and regulatory frameworks, a cumbersome government approval process, and a lack of bankable projects.” Another reason why I find it curious that Paderanga is in the cabinet??? –Roberto R. Romulo (The Philippine Star