Latest update March 25th, 2025 7:08 AM
Jun 08, 2009 News
Although concerns have been raised about the recently introduced Information Technology Initiative Programme at City Hall, which is touted to cost a whopping $26M, the Indian-based Software Company, Polaris, is still proceeding with the venture.
This is according to the municipality’s Head of Information Technology, Waynewright Orderson.
Several Councillors and the Commissioner of Inquiry, Keith Burrowes, who is currently tasked with finalising a report on the state of the municipality, had expressed concern about the venture. Burrowes had speculated at a recent statutory meeting, that the IT programme was not properly planned and therefore, could do more harm than good in the long run.
The Commissioner, as a result, had revealed his intent to modify the report, reflecting his concerns about the programme.
Waynewright Orderson (extreme right), Minister Kellawan Lall (third from right) in the company of members of the Polaris team
However, Orderson, during a recent interview with this newspaper, insisted that the venture continues even as he debunked allegations that the programme was not properly planned.
Shedding some light on the importance of the programme, Orderson said that he and the team of Polaris experts, paid the Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Kellawan Lall, a visit last Wednesday.
“He (the Minister) was planning to meet with the team to understand the scope of the project and how we hope to benefit from it. What we did when we managed to meet with the Minister, was to bring him up-to-date with the entire overview of the programme and we also gave him an update of where we are at.”
The major discussion, Orderson said, was centred on the fact that the programme will facilitate standardisation.
And though there is likely to be an initial outlay of $26M, Orderson noted that the programme will entail all of Government’s requirements for municipalities, including the procurement regulations, such as the method of doing budget.
Additionally, he explained that it is anticipated that within one year, the municipality will be able to recover far more than the initial expenditure, if the payroll is cut by a mere $2M per month. And cutting the payroll he said, simply means removing some of the redundancy within the municipality with a view of improving efficiency.
Other municipalities will also be able to benefit from the programme when it is completed, Orderson disclosed.
“They will not need to do all the work we are doing right now. When we are finished, the next day Linden or New Amsterdam can actually log into our system and use a module of it to do all of the same things we do. So they will not have to design their own system.”
The programme, Orderson said, could also be introduced among the local Regional Councils and Neighbourhood Democratic Councils.
“We also spoke with the Minister about the ability of the programme to interface with the Ministry of Local Government, so rather than they have to wait to be given reports from the municipality as to our financial state, our programme of works, they can come into our system and be apprised simultaneously to where we are at.”
Orderson divulged that currently, Polaris has completed the system analysis phase of the venture, which saw them interacting with Heads of Departments to deduce how they operate manually. As a result, he noted that they (Polaris) now have an appreciation of what is needed.
Another aspect called the Gap Analysis has also been completed, where they have been able to establish what can be done to improve the current system, thus, they have engaged a system design phase.
According to Orderson, by tomorrow the Polaris team will present a status report to the Management Information System Committee, which is the governing committee for the municipality’s Information Technology Department.
He pointed out that the presentation of the report will be the first benchmark, adding that they have in fact reached the half way stage of the project. At the end of the month, the team is expected to submit the entire roadmap for the project, Orderson added.
“People feel that this is just a basic consultancy that we are paying $26M for, and we will put it on a shelf like any other document, but that is not it. This is a system design where they are looking at our hardware requirements, our networking requirements, and our software infrastructure requirements. And they have already begun working on what they call the treasury management system.”
In essence, he noted that the Polaris experts are designing a municipal general ledger, which will entail all of the areas that the finance department manages and at the same time, they are designing a tax collecting system to replace the one in operation. All other departments will be addressed, once the treasury and tax collecting systems are in place.
Once completed, the municipality is expected to have a fool-proof, fraud resistant system, which could be accessed anywhere in the world, Orderson said.
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