SSO deal with IBM raises eyebrows
The Social Security Office (SSO) yesterday defended paying Bt100,000 a day for an IBM computer system to handle the social security scheme, while a separate Bt2.8-billion information technology (IT) project for the office has been put on hold.
Renting the system for Bt100,000 per day was necessary as IBM was the only systems operator capable of handling the profiles of nine million beneficiaries and other information in such a huge database, including 13-digit social security numbers, SSO secretary-general Phairoj Suksamrit said.An earlier three-year-old contract with IBM, worth Bt50 million, had just expired and it will cost the SSO Bt100,000 a day to continue using the IBM service on a short-term basis. However, the extended deal, when approved, will cost Bt50 million in total, with the daily rate included, Phairoj said. Phairoj said he had ordered a halt to the Bt2.8-billion IT project and would submit all updated details to Labour Minister Apai Chandanachulaka tomorrow . An official explanation would also be released later. An SSO source said Phairoj was given two years to improve the initial contract with IBM before it expired to turn the programmes that run the database into open-source ones to avoid having to extend the deal at a very high price - but had simply failed to do so. The source said the IBM system was crucial to the Bt2.8-billion project, as well, but it had not been decided how long the SSO still needed to use the IBM system or how much it would have to pay to secure the IBM service. The source said the SSO's board of directors had agreed to make the SSO's management responsible for solving the problems. "It's the SSO management's problem - not the board's," the source said.
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