LTO chief warns foreign IT contractor to shape up or ship out

NEWLY-installed Land Transportation Office (LTO) Chief, Assistant Secretary Teofilo Guadiz III, is studying the possibility of replacing the agency’s current foreign information technology (IT) contractor, ‘Dermalog,’ due to its poor performance and involvement in a criminal case.

In a media interview held during the 1st Regional Directors’ Conference in Quezon City last week, Guadiz said that he has received reports on the regular glitches of the Land Transportation Management System (LTMS), the LTO’s online portal developed by Dermalog, which cause slowing down of processes and transactions in various LTO sites nationwide.

He explained that the public is complaining about the slow processing of driver’s license applications, which takes up to a week from its previous turnaround time of only two hours. Most of these complaints were being shared via social media, which puts the agency in a bad light.

The LTO chief was also made aware of the qualified theft case filed against the foreign IT contractor by its local partner in the Joint Venture Agreement (JVA), ‘Verzontal Builders, Inc.,’ before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

It can be recalled that Dermalog has partnered with Verzontal and two other companies, ‘Holy Family Printing Corp.’ and, ‘Microgenesis Software, Inc.’ for the bidding of the P3.19-billion DOTr Road Transportation Infrastructure Project (LTO-Component A), which pertains to the LTMS.

Guadiz is scheduled to meet with the officials of Dermalog this week to discuss the IT contractor’s action plans to resolve the issues of LTMS, specifically the driver’s license application and motor vehicle registration systems.

On the other hand, Guadiz has already started to call on other eligible IT providers to participate in the possible bidding of the project on system automation to improve the services of the agency to the public.