Contractual Controversy Dogs Human Resource Data Management System

[Deeq A.]

Garowe (PPM) — Four years ago Puntland State Government awarded a contract to create a Human Resource Data Management System to an IT expert. The project under the World Bank Capacity Injection Project was completed and handed over to Puntland State Government nearly two years ago. A person familiar with the project told Puntland Post that the Ministry of Labour, Youth and Sports had raised questions about the quality of the Human Resource Data Management system.

A senior official of Puntland Labour Ministry questioned the project quality and compatibility with tasks involving  recording of civil service personnel data. The senior officer doubts that the system was designed in line with agreed specifications. Puntland Post has not been able to get hold of Human Resource Data Management System specifications but understands the IT expert in question still works for Puntland State Government in a different capacity. “If Puntland State Government signed off the project and sent end-of-project report to the World Bank  it will be fairly assumed the IT expert met his/her contractual obligations” says a London-based contract law lecturer.

President Said Deni has not ordered investigation into the controversy 

Puntland State Government uses the personnel data system whose alleged inadequacies the Labour Ministry retrospectively views as a breach of a contract. The contractual controversy will get more complicated if periodic maintenance of the system by the contractor had not been not specified in the contract. A maintenance clause in the contract could enable Puntland Government to fix any flaws in the Human Resource Data Management system.

The system requires training of the staff that will use it. Without proper training the staff will not grasp features of the personnel data system to use it effectively and efficiently. “Records management officers have also been recruited and trained. There is a huge gap of public sector institutions not linked to the new government records management system because it is outside the scope of this project” the World Bank wrote about the project, which was separately implemented by Puntland State Government and the Federal Government of Somalia.

In a paper published in Journal of Financial Crime Abdinur Abdirizak Sofe “found that governmental and non-governmental actors [in Puntland] are involved in the humanitarian corruption such as project managers and support staffs in addition to line ministries, parliament and community representatives.”

© Puntland Post Monthly, 2020  

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