when the processes involved are repetitive or continuous. This group includes the payroll system, the billing of services, monitoring the personnel system, accountancy, etc. But even in these cases it is common to find systems based on obsolete technologies or that have not integrated into larger systems, in spite of using common data bases.44 This does not mean that there has not been any progress. Various countries of LAC are involved in the development and introduction of these systems, particularly central data bases for consultation or decision-making. With greater or smaller defects and eventual interruptions, as an example we can mention Panama´s system of classification of job positions or the centralized data systems of personnel, structures and salaries of Brazil, El Salvador, and Argentina. In some cases the software has been designed but is not in use, or there are difficulties in implementing the systems. There have also been successful experiences at isolated institutional levels. But the majority of the answers in the questionnaires inform that there are no single and central data bases or applications that support a system of management information, but only isolated and partial systems related to various aspects of the structure, the personnel or the salaries.45 A third reason to explain the limited adoption of information technology can be attributed to the fact that, very often, the systems “squeal�, i.e., they tend to make management more transparent and to expose irregular situations. A new government may be interested in introducing a managerial system of information that permits, for example, financial auditing or to determine if expenditures on personnel by the previous management were correct. On the other hand, if that same government decided to apply such system towards the end of its incumbency period, it may find that its own faults or mismanagement will be exposed. It is symptomatic, in this the respect, that in Argentina there is almost no evidence of effective mechanisms being used to monitor and control management based on hard technologies.46 In the fourth place, the political cadres that succeed each other in running the organizations often conspire against the effective introduction of information technology. Sometimes, the systems fall in disuse and are abandoned for lack of continuity of the initial political support that led to its development. The automatic rejection of the initiatives of predecessors, the running out of funds used in the initial stages, the search for 44
One of the most conspicuous examples is that of the integrated systems of financial administration , that intend to articulate the functions of budget, accountancy, treasury, public credit, auditing and even management of personnel, purchases and supplies or registration of state assets. In this sense it is symptomatic that only very recently has there been a first successful project, in Guatemala, that coincidentally, received the Prize for Excellency 1999 from the World Bank. among 2500 projects funded by the Bank. Similar deficits are present in the area of the human resources systems, where the majority of the activities (v.g. recruitment, evaluation of performance, human resources budget, salary analysis, training and development) have no computerized systems, in spite of available technological tools. 45 The differences in the degree institutions adopt technological innovations do not escape a rule common to other aspects of public management: agencies linked to the more powerful clienteles, often colonized by these, tend to gather and retain the technological, material, and human resources of greater level and quality, so it should not be unusual for them to be the ones that exhibit greater advances in IT systems. This judgment extends to the decentralized or autarchic institutions, that generally have greater possibilities of development in this matter. Hence, a central bank, a ministry of economy, one of foreign affairs or a tax service, contrast strongly with a labor ministry, a public school or hospital as far as their respective possibilities of successfully installing modern systems of information and management. The greater availability of funding from multilateral banks for the development of these technologies in fiscal and financial sectors has also contributed to widening the technological gap, as compared with organizations in other sectors. 46 In a paper written years ago, we found that although a National System of Management Control was in effect, the institutional mechanisms to carry out this responsibility had not been created, or when formally existing, they only played a token role. See Oszlak, 1987.
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