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THE
Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) gave its contractor
Unisys Philippines until March to finish a
computerization project that has been delayed for about
close to two years.
General
manager Oscar M. Sevilla said last week that the PPA
board has given Unisys “one final” extension of the
schedule to complete the project that aims to modernize
the state firm’s operation and collect more money.
At the
moment, PPA employees operate the operator’s system
manually.
“It [the
delay] went beyond their [Unisys] control,” Sevilla
said, referring to the high turnover of people in the
technology firm.
As of
press time, Unisys country manager Carlos Alunan has not
yet replied to BusinessMirror’s queries on the issue.
According to a PPA document, the state firm wants to
fully roll out the modernization project—a task that
should have been completed by middle of 2006—to
complement its efforts to achieve a collection
efficiency ratio of 98 percent for the year’s
receivables and 60 percent for last year’s.
The PPA
has earmarked about P141 million this year for the
roll-out of its project all over more than a hundred
ports in the country that it owns and operates.
As of
December 2006, the project was 85-percent complete, and
the progress of work is “slow,” until today due to lack
of proper Unisys personnel, according to the PPA.
The PPA
has already threatened that it will employ “alternative
solutions” to implement other remaining packages, which
meant cancellation of the entire project.
In 2002,
the PPA started its program called PROMPT (Providing
Reliable Operations and Management of Ports Thru
Technology) that covers the automation of the PPA’s
business processes across functions. These processes and
functions include the port district offices to port
management offices, and head office operations in
Manila.
One of
its components is the accounting and financial
management system, which deals with the accounting and
financial management processes. This is currently on
pilot test at the head office, the two port district
offices of Luzon, the management offices of North and
South Harbors in Manila and port management office in
Batangas.
A recent
report by the Commission on Audit (COA), however, showed
that some reports using the computerized system in 2006
from North Harbor and PPA’s port management office in
Davao were “inaccurate” and caused an unrecorded PPA
income of P5.35 million.
“Management [PPA] explained that the facility for the
ageing schedule of accounts receivable is available in
the computerized system. However, the completeness and
correctness of the reports generated in the system
cannot be ensured with several problems encountered in
the modules on Port Operations Management System [POMS]
and the Accounting and Financial Management System [AFMS],”
the COA said in its report.
“Management should require the Unisys, the contractor
for PPA’s computerization project, to enhance the POMS
and AFMS modules in order that the Statements of
Accounts of clients are reconciled with the balances of
debtor’s accounts appearing in the Aging Schedule of
Receivables,” the state auditor advised. |
