It is
important that PASHA and PSEB should work together
By
Syed M. Aslam
May 20 - June 02, 2002
It's never easy to write about Pakistani IT
industry mainly because there are too many loose ends. For instance,
while the Pakistani software houses have been successful in craving
out a niche — irrespective of the fact that the collective exports
from the country remains negligibly low — they have failed to build
a domestic base. On the other hand, we are producing a surplus of IT
professionals — comprising over 100,000 certificate, diploma and
degree holders — each year only a small percentage of which can be
absorbed in the industry leaving the rest to find jobs elsewhere or to
remain unemployed altogether.
In addition, awarding of mega IT projects to
foreign companies by public sector companies is also a major detriment
for the growth of the IT industry in general and software development
activities in particular. PAGE had highlighted the awarding of
mega IT project awarded to a Korean company by the central bank, the
State Bank of Pakistan last year. That was in the past but the
inclination to award jobs to foreign companies by the private sector
companies still continues unabated despite the directive by the
government to give the local software houses the preference. The
latest example is the awarding of $ 3 million IT project to a foreign
company Kapiti, which is represented by IBM in Pakistan, by the top
nationalized bank, the Habib Bank.
So far the policy makers have been occupied with
promoting the IT culture which has basically benefited the supply
side, in other words the investment in imported hardware, equipments
and peripherals. No doubt the drastic cuts in the wholesale internet
bandwidth tariffs have also benefited the end users and universal
internet access has been made available far and wide, even if in some
areas the quality of service remains extremely poor. Accreditation and
quality testing of IT education and institutions have also been
introduced for the first time. IT industry in general and software
developers in particular have been granted a range of fiscal
incentives to help fuel the growth. However, much still remains to be
done to create the demand side in the IT industry without which the
local software industry would remain deprived of the local base, a
pre-requisite for all export-oriented industries.
Talking to PAGE, Javed Naushahi, member of
the Task Force on e-commerce, Government of Pakistan, stressed on the
need to 'look inward' in order to create the demand side, particularly
in the financial sector which can lead the way. "The financial
sector is the biggest user of the IT Commerce anywhere in the world
and same is also true for Pakistan. By its very nature it can play the
leading role to create the much needed demand side IT here.
"The major reason for the creation of the
demand side IT is that the government is very slow due primarily to
the rampant red-tapism in all the related departments resisting
changes that would erode their influence. For instance, the
state-owned Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) has failed to
automate its BCCS (Billing and Customer Care System) for over a
decade. The absence of this on-line billing system has cost PTCL
billions of rupees in losses.
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