Accountancy Forum

The government since more than a decade is wasting unnecessarily the badly needed national money of we the citizens of a debit ridden country on introducing madly the webs, computers, networking and modern i-tech. The then i.tech minister talking to the then US Ambassador in Pakistan proudly boosted that introduction of computerization in government departments would provide easy interaction to the public with the concerned government departments. He deliberately and “innocently” forgot that it is not any sort of technology, manual or electronic, but the man sitting in front or back of that technology to operate it which matters. Once a computer became angry with its owner that he was using it against the manners prescribed in the Manual. The computer threatened if the owner did not change his attitude, it would churn out wrong processed end data-product. The owner who was not a government servant only once had to tell the computer that he would switch it off. My experience is 90% of web site information on our government departments websites is not trustable. Either the information is old not updated since long or incorrect reason being the computers had been installed only to provide jobs to some. The Punjab Ombudsman web site showed for about one and a half year name of the ombudsman who had gone home while the new one had long taken charge of. Once to know the current postal rates to my bad luck I consulted Pakistan Post Office web site. I affixed the postage stamps on my letters as per rates shown on that web site. All recipients of my letters complained as to why I had posted them under paid letters causing them to pay difference with penalty. I approached the Federal Ombudsman requesting for refund of such paid penalty etc but not surprising to me at all the Federal Ombudsman bureaucracy having sympathies towards the bureaucracy did not find any act of mal administration in it and turned down my complaint. A British journalist long resident in Pakistan in connection with his practical-social-work a few months back visited a senior bureaucrat in Islamabad. He wrote that the bureaucrat had on his table the latest hi-fi Pentium computer which he only knew switching on and off. For what purpose these computers are installed? Those amateurs like me must have learnt through experience that while playing with the internet sometime an amateur like me punches inadvertently some wrong button which results in popping up undesired website making that as your Home Page. A few years back the press reported that one of the Pakistan embassy site when surfed brings out adult photo pages which meant due to “keyboard playing” the page being “played” got linked as home page. A few months back someone in these columns reported that Saddar Karachi GPO demands for renewal of a post office box the previous year issued renewal receipt to know the name of the postbox holder and payment status. Though not any surprise keeping in view the general practical use of computers in government department, the interesting thing is that when the concerned staff is signaled that previous year payment receipt was not brought and that instead they need to check this information through the computer installed on their table, the reply comes that computer was not updated.

The other day I was surfing the Pakistan Post Office web site. Concerning facility of private post office boxes it says a P.O. Box can be obtained and renewed on Calendar yearly basis. The fact is that the post boxes since inception of Pakistan Post Office are allotted, rented out and renewed for each Financial year namely 01st July to next 30th July.