Gov’t employees to have laptops

MANILA, Philippines - Government employees will soon have their own laptops.

The government will purchase at least 250,000 laptops in three years as part of the Integrated Government Philippines (iGovPhil) project, which aims to turn national government employees into “e-civil servants.”

Budget Undersecretary Richard Moya said they have finished the technical study and other requirements for the public bidding of the P1.8-billion project.

“You don’t have to procure them, they will fall on your laps,” Moya said in his presentation at the start of the three-day iGovPhil forum held at the UP Ayala Technohub along Commonwealth Avenue, in Diliman, Quezon City yesterday.

Under the program, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will procure 95,000 laptops in 2014, 80,000 in 2015 and the remaining laptops in 2016 or until all national government employees from Salary Grade 4 and above each have a laptop.

The iGovPhil project of the Department of Science and Technology seeks to lay out efficient electronic or e-government infrastructure and systems in the country.

The project also requires government employees to use the official gov.ph e-mail address for official electronic communications either in inter-government transactions or correspondence, or in dealing with the public and to provide secure and efficient websites to national government agencies.

Moya said government agencies should start using the e-government infrastructure and other facilities being pushed by the national government through the iGovPhil project.

“We spend P3 billion in paper and half-a-billion more in air-conditioning for the various independent data centers every year.... Interconnecting government agencies will save us billions in terms of time and money,” he said.

“E-government needs e-civil servants,” he added.

The laptops will reportedly be replaced every three years.

A government employee will be given the option to buy the laptop at 10 percent of its cost after three years.