VietNamNet Bridge – The information technology (IT) application projects funded by the State budget have been going at a snail’s pace because of the unreasonable administrative procedures.

The fertile land with few cultivation opportunities

The IT business circle has complained that the government’s resolution No. 11 on cutting public spending and the Decree No. 102 on the management over state funded IT projects have badly affected the implementation of IT projects.

Duong Dung Trieu, General Director of FPT IS, a subsidiary of FPT Group, said no integrated project funded by the state budget has been signed since October 2011 due to the complicated investment procedures stipulated in the Decree No. 102.

The decree has been described as “unique decree”, because it cannot be applied in reality.

Though money has been allocated to investors, no IT project has been kicked off. The IT projects funded by the State have become nearly frozen.

State funded IT projects are always considered the “tidbit” for IT firms, because they are all big projects with huge investment capital. Therefore, state funded projects are really the fertile land on which every IT firm wishes to make for cultivation.

However, to date, IT firms still cannot see many opportunities for cultivation on the land. The IT application projects are carried out in different project components, while every unit is in charge of certain works. As a result, the different parts cannot be integrated into a system for operation.

“Except for some big agencies which have experiences in implementing public investment projects, the other projects have been ineffective,” Trieu said.

“It’s necessary to change the procedures to approach government agencies to make them suitable to different stages of IT projects,” Trieu added.

Since IT firms, which have been slaving over the big IT projects, still cannot obtain the pieces of the cake; they have been trying to cooperating with state management agencies to push up the disbursement.

PPP mechanism believed to be the most feasible solution

It’s really very difficult to obtain the contracts on implementing IT utilization projects in the public investment sector. However, the difficulties would not make IT firms give up the games.

Adversity brings wisdom. FPT IS, for example, can still sell its products by approaching the local demands. Its FPT.eGOV, an e-government information system solution has been effectively running at 539 state agencies in 21 out of the 62 provinces and cities.

The product was chosen by the HCM City People’s Committee as the outstanding product for the IT development program in the city in 2011, which has helped put HCM City on the leading position in the ICT application index nationwide.

FPT IS has recently signed a memorandum of understanding on the cooperation with Quang Ninh about the IT development in 2012-2015 in the fields of e-government, e-tax, e-health care.

Trieu of FPT IS believes that Vietnam should consider different investment modes to choose the best ones for IT state funded projects.

FPT IS, for example, has offered to carry out projects under different modes of PPP (private public partnership), BOT (build, operation, transfer) or IT outsourcing, to give more choices to government and state agencies.

Analysts have agreed that once IT is defined as one of the four infrastructure bases of the national infrastructure, this would be a feasible way to follow in implementing IT projects for government agencies.

Compiled by Thanh Mai