On April 18th, the National Computerization Agency (NCA) and the Center for National Computing and Information Resource Administration (NCIA) of the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) signed a contract designating the NCA as the Project Management Office (PMO) for the 'e-Government Communication Environment Development Planning Project'.


Two Centers have been built to consolidate government information resources, such as the information systems that are being run by each government agencies, and human capital. Work to transfer system operation and resources to the 1st Center is ongoing and the 2nd Center will be completed in 2007. The integration of systems and resources is expected to improve information sharing and efficiency, and provide a nationwide backup system by analyzing threats.


The selection of a public organization to be the PMO for an e-Government project is a first in Korea. According to Director Song of the NCA, the selection as the PMO of a government project reflects the growing recognition of our experience and expertise garnered over years of planning, evaluating and auditing national informatization projects, and also of our capacity as the primary agency in charge of implementing e-Government in Korea.


The PMO of a project is in charge of overall management from scheduling, risk management to output management, i.e. all management aspects of the project. Companies employ PMO to increase the efficiency and ensure the success of a project by optimizing allocated resource and budget. Generally, PMO contracts are signed independent of the main project. The use of a PMO in government projects is not a common practice, and in particular PMO contracts awarded to a public organization for a government project is unprecedented.


The 'e-Government Communication Environment Development Planning Project' has the objective of establishing a plan for developing and enhancing communications systems for government organization within the context of consolidating all government information systems into the Centers, and also enhancing information distribution system and e-Government communication networks between government, corporate and citizens. The project is expected to be carried out for five months and be completed by September, 2006.