Russia’s government prefers to take its time before signing a new contract with an outside service provider to support its electronic infrastructure, including systems of interdepartmental collaboration, the government services portal Gosuslugi.ru, and a unified system of identification and authentication.
So far, the government’s provider for these projects has been Rostelecom, Russia’s leading telecom operator, in which the state owns a 53.2% stake.
But the existing contract with this organization – which amounted to over $30 million – expired on April 30, CNews.ru reported last week. At the moment, Rostelecom is continuing its support even though there is no longer a formal contract in place.
As an unnamed source of CNews.ru told the publication, this time the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media is planning to find alternative suppliers for at least some components of e-government infrastructure.
Another source told Cnews.ru that a new version of the government services portal Gosuslugi.ru is already being developed by the Voskhod Research Institute, a governmental entity controlled by the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media.
The Russian federal interdepartmental government communications system was implemented by Rostelecom, which announced in April 2012 that 70 out of 83 Russian regions were linked to it. However, almost one year later, in February 2013, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media was reported by RIA Novosti as being dissatisfied with Rostelecom’s services.
Among the other projects implemented in this field by, or with the participation of, Rostelecom over the past few years have been the development of a bank card with e-government access and the deployment of 180,000 webcams to monitor last year’s presidential election.
Update: May 23, 2013
Earlier this month Russian President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov agreed to divide the work of supporting e-government infrastructure between the Russian Post and the Voskhod Research Institute, CNews.ru reported yesterday, referring to unnamed sources.
The Russian Post will take care of the government services portal and allow its clients to use the portal in post offices; the Institute’s responsibilities will include systems integration and support of systems for interdepartmental collaboration.
Rostelecom will continue providing communication services for the project and also develop some of its systems.
