PAKISTAN POST REVERTS BACK TO MANUAL LEDGER SYSTEM

PAKISTAN Post's financial transactions system has reverted back to manual ledger system due to its nonfunctional Centralised Software Solution (CSS). Sources said that the departmental rift among the highups of Pakistan Post and the Ministry of Communications has pushed the state institution into stone age as the entire financial transactions system of PP has reverted back to the manual ledger system.

At present, the officials of general post offices (GPOs) are shifting the data on excel sheets to keep the record safe, however, a PP official informed this scribe that manual transactions record has found numerous errors and possibility of ghost transactions in saving accounts.

The Pakistan Post management had given a contract to Telconet to automate the workings of seven financial services in 83 GPOs across the country, but the Pakistan Post inquiry report revealed that the system was not working effectively even after the lapse of seven years.

Telconet has rejected the PP's inquiry report, stating that the PP's IT department was satisfied with the performance of the vendor during the first three years, and as a consequence, the service contract was duly extended till 2017.

Independent IT experts opined that the technology implementation and service provision of the financial services was inherently a difficult task given the resistance of vested interests within the Pakistan Post officers, who opposed automation at every level of the behemoth organization.

Record shows that Telconet paid around $650,000 to Escher software licences for the software, consulting, training and support services, resulting in the successful implementation of the world class solution. The

PP's IT department in its communication had mentioned that "TelcoNet has implemented all the seven financial services of Pakistan Post as per the Contract Agreement time period".

The copy of the contract agreement of 2012 between PPOD and the vendor revealed that "TelcoNet shall supply only executable versions of the software. All intellectual Property Rights pertaining to software, documentation and other technology will remain with the developing company".

The vendor selected by PP after Feb 15, 2019, carried on providing the same services in 83 GPOs, from a system left by TelcoNet, successfully for several months after the expiry of TelcoNet contract, which shows that the vendor left a fully operational system with PP in Feb 2019. The new vendor has all records and system data as they kept on operating the system for many months after Feb 2019, and were paid for the successful operations by Pakistan Post.