THE Land Transportation Office yesterday rejected the call of lawmakers to terminate its land transportation management system (LTMS) contract with German technology firm Dermalog, its current information technology service provider, saying the agency does not have the capability to run the system.
LTO chief Assistant Secretary Vigor Mendoza admitted the agency could not take over the LTMS, through which the registration of millions of motor vehicles in the country and driver’s licenses are processed every year because the LTO does not have sufficient IT knowledge and personnel to take charge of the system.
“We cannot on our own run the system without the assistance of our IT service provider Dermalog,” he told Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, chair of the House committee on transportation.
Acop and other House members have been urging the LTO to scrap the deal with Dermalog after the Commission on Audit (COA), in a report last year, flagged the P3.14-billion LTMS project over delays in the implementation of the program, despite full payments for core applications and at least 15 contract extensions, which could lead to fund wastage.
The LTMS was developed by the joint venture agreement of the German IT company and its local partners Holy Family Printing Corp., Microgenesis and Verzontal Builders Inc. LTO contracted Dermalog in 2018 to develop and manage the LTMS, which the government now owns.
“I assure you, Mr. Chairman, that our position is in the best interest of the government. We can explain it in a closed-door session because of the presence of parties here that are litigants in a case pending in the Supreme Court (involving the contract),” Mendoza told Acop.
The LTO chief, who was only appointed in July last year, agreed to check the track record of LTO’s former IT provider, Stradcom, which has earned billions from its previous engagement with the LTO despite many complaints of inefficiency.
“We will have to validate their capability to walk the talk,” Mendoza said.
There was a transition period during which Stradcom was required but failed to turn over to the LTO all data it had collected during the duration of its contract.
In a letter dated May 2, Transportation Secretary Bautista prodded Stradcom president Anthony Quiambao to comply with the requirement, saying the data submission “is crucial for a smooth transition to the new vehicle registration module and to expedite transaction processing for better service to our clients and stakeholders.
“However, due to delays in transmission and missing data in the entries submitted, there are still obstacles to the execution and implementation of the new vehicle registration module of the LTO,” Bautista said in his letter.
