KARACHI: Chairman FBR Nisar Mohammad Khan has called a high level meeting in Islamabad to deliberate upon the reasons of WeBOC shutdown for around 36 hours, which resulted in suspension of customs clearance of import and export consignments.
An official said the meeting scheduled to be held on Tuesday would consider updating of equipment, which was in a poor state. Moreover, the WeBOC support and maintenance contract with IBM had expired over a year ago and the Board would likely approve renewal of this contract.
WeBOC shut down throughout the country on Friday evening till Saturday evening stopping customs clearance. The incident primarily occurred as the storage hard discs were not replaced after completion of warranty life. The entire Storage Area Network (SAN) collapsed suspending all WeBOC operations.
Sources said the Project Director WeBOC had sent several reminders to the Information Management System (IMS) Department, Islamabad as well as Network & Structure Team in Islamabad mentioning the state of equipment and requested immediate replacement of equipment. However, no action was taken in this regard.
Just the consignments processed through the Green Channel were cleared while the consignments through Yellow and Red Channel were not processed. Only 30 percent of consignments are cleared through the green channel.
Official said the warranty of the equipment expired last year while the support & maintenance contract with IBM had also expired and was not renewed.