Two interior ministry projects left incomplete by firm even after being fully paid. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
Despite the 100% payment of Rs1.5 billion for two interior ministry projects pertaining to data automation and electronic identification system, the concerned company has abandoned the projects, after completing 30% of the work.
According to the interior ministry records, the two projects – Police Record & Office Management Information System (PROMIS) and Pakistan Automated Fingerprints Identification System (PAFIS) – were launched back in 2005 and they were outsourced to an Islamabad-based company named Interactive.
Later, the company was given the full payment of Rs1.5 billion for establishing the equipment and other related works. But it has left the projects by finishing only one-third of work.
No one knows the whereabouts of the company or its officials.
Maryum Aurangzeb, a PML-N MNA and parliamentary secretary of the Ministry of Interior and Narcotics Control, confirmed the matter, saying that the then government of Shaukat Aziz had launched the two projects and outsourced to Interactive.
She said that though the primary objective of these projects was automation and identification, there was a component related to the establishment of a disaster recovery centre, which could also work as a Central Data Bank at National Police Bureau, Islamabad.
She said that the projects are partially complete and are now being handed over to the provinces for expansion.
Aurangzeb stated that after it is fully implemented, the central repository will start functioning. But the provinces have yet to initiate expansion, she added.
Under the project, all districts of the country are supposed to record all available data on criminals and put them in the central data pool to monitor these elements.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th, 2014.
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