Background of Information Technology Department

With the highest consideration and initiative of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's management a unit called Information and Communication Technology Unit was created in 2006 under the Economic and Public Finance Policy Department to mainly endorse FMIS project which meant to be reinforced again after a long break in National Treasury. A group of 5 people are assigned to implement this project at the initial stage with the assistant of one FMIS consultant. A project plan which is known as FMIS blueprint was written by the 5 people based on their specializing fields following the format of a generic template guided by the consultant. In December 2007, this project plan was recognized by the Australian International Consortium Consultant Group as it was designed very similar to the Prince Project concept.

To improve the capacity of the in house staffs and to raise the awareness of MEF management, ICT Unit conducted a study tour on the topic of "FMIS Project Implementation" to the Ulaanbaatar capital city of Republic of Mongolia. 24 departmental management officials and ICTU officials led by Dr. Hang Chuon Naron, the MEF Secretary General, visited and studied Mongolia's GFMIS (Government FMIS) in June 12 to 14, 2006. After that the concept of how to achieve the successful FMIS project and usefulness of the computerized system had been introduced throughout MEF.

To endorse the FMIS project implementation, a FMIS Steering Committee (comprises of all the head of MEF's line departments) was created on March 20, 2006 by the MEF's Prakas number 150 SHVRPK.

Meanwhile, the FMIS first Stage bidding document had been developed based on the World Bank (WB) standard RFP (Request For Proposal) and in December 2006 the document had been given NOL (No Objection Letter) by WB to be released to the suppliers. About 15 copies of the document were sold out and 09 International bidders were interested and joint the bidding process.. Further comments were received from the Bank seeking additional amendments on June 2, 2008 and this Report finalized and presented to the Bank on July 09, 2008.

On the March 16, 2007 at 10:00 AM, the First Stage Bid Opening at the Ministry of Economy and Finance was organized, and 09 bids were submitted. Among these 09 bids, 03 bids were submitted (two bids through postal mails and one bid through the ICT Procurement official) before the March 16, 2007, and other 06 companies submitted their bidding documents in persons in the Bid Opening Session. No bid was submitted after the deadline. The evaluation process on the submitted bids was completed in April 2007; an Evaluation Report was prepared and submitted to the World Bank for No Objection Letter on August 16, 2007. A response was received from the Bank on October 20, 2007 suggesting changes be made to the Report. A second report was prepared and submitted to the Bank on March 11, 2008 and was returned with further suggested amendments. These were prepared and the report resubmitted to the Bank on May 04, 2008.

While expecting for the NOL from WB on the first stage bid result, in June 18 to 20, 2007 ICTU conducted another intensive study tour to Hanoi capital city of Vietnam to see the implementation of TABMIS-Treasury And Budget Management Information System in order to avoid pitfalls and mistakes in FMIS project implement. This time Dr. Hang Chuon Naron led 07 ICTU staffs and 01 FMIS consultant to meet and discuss with TABMIS project team, National Treasury, Budget Department and Finally the H.E Deputy Minister of Finance gave his honor to welcome the team as well. Back from then, the FMIS project team fully realize that the Business Process Reengineering, Change Management, Capacity Building, a comprehensive contract and above all else the strong support and commitment of MEF's management are the crucial key successes to the FMIS.

Realized that FMIS project is something big and the size of ICTU in term of number of staffs, functions and responsibilities, the MEF's management decided to transform the ICTU to be Information Technology Department (ITD) by the Royal Government of Cambodia's Sub decree number 20 GNRK.BK dated on 29th February 2008.

In July 18, 2008, 10 young ICT staffs were recruited to support ITD's routines and FMIS project. They are specialized in Database administration and development, Networking, Web site development and other application software. However these young guys and the ITD senior staffs have to be trained in both fundamental and specialized fields to be ready to be the support the FMIS project and system implementation (see capacity building).

On 13 June 2008, the FMIS first Stage bidding process was given NOL by WB to announce the result of the First stage bid in which 04 bidders were invited to participate in the Second stage bid and all of them committed to the next stage.

Currently, ITD is leading all the MEF's line departments and unit and 5 line ministries (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Public Work and Transport, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery and Ministry of Rural Development) to do the Business Process Reengineering, Change management and Capacity Building while waiting for the NOL on the second stage bidding document from World Bank.