Monday, September 15, 2008 City needs new server, IT staff
ASIDE from an outdated server, the Cebu City Government is also bugged by lack of competent personnel to handle its information technology (IT) needs.
It hired webmasters, said City Management Information and Computer Services (Mics) Chief William Artajo, but lost them again to the private sector, which offers more appealing wages.
He said his office only has three webmasters left who, aside from supervising the City’s website, also have to respond to the needs of the different departments.
He estimates that the City must spend P660,000 to upgrade its server, which is just an old computer using 10 gigabytes in memory capacity that has operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the past five years.
Because of the server’s very limited memory capacity, new content cannot be uploaded to the website (cebucity.gov.ph) and city officials cannot access their website-based e-mail accounts.
Artajo had told the City Council that the web server “has already ran out of space” that they are forced to continually check for files that could be deleted already.
No funding
Mics first proposed to upgrade the server two years ago, but the funding was not carried in last year’s budget, the succeeding supplemental budgets and the Annual Investment Plan.
In the City Council session last week, Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa, who owns Asian College of Technology, offered to have the problem addressed by his school.
“I’m thinking of having it as a project of some of our students,” he told the council last week.
Vice Mayor Michael Rama, who presided the session, did not give a categorical answer on his proposal, which got buried during the succeeding discussion.
Councilor Roberto Cabarrubias presented the P660,000-estimate proposed by Artajo for the server upgrade, but the City Council did not give its approval since Artajo did not endorse and countersign it.
The amount for the upgrading and other computer units already includes the license for the software.
Cabarrubias, committee on IT chairman, said that once the upgrades are in, it is already possible to browse the web and send electronic mail, among others. (RHM)
