📋 Tender Overview
Project ID: P173001
Region: Europe and central asia
Commitment Amount: Us$ 60.00 million
Total Project Cost: Us$ 60.00 million
The proposed project is a five-year Investment Project Financing (IPF) operation. The project will have three key components. Component 1 will focus on optimizing and automating core tax administration business processes, Component 2 will aim to reduce the informal economy, and Component 3 will aim to strengthen STC’s institutional capabilities to ensure sustainability. The proposed budget is $60 million, out of which $5 million is allocated as a contingency. Component 1: Automation of core tax administration business processes ($40 million):The objective of this component is to enhance the operational efficiency of STC. This will be done by simplifying and re-engineering core business processesthat underpin STC’s tax collection and control functions. The component will finance software development to automate the businessprocesses where feasible. In addition, key hardware components and data platforms will be revamped and integrated to increase the administration’s technological readiness. It is expected that achieving full automation will enhance the quality and operational efficiency of the tax system, thereby laying a foundation to improve business climate and minimize tax compliance costs in Uzbekistan. 22.Status and challenges. Tax administration in Uzbekistan is inefficient due largely to a low level of automation and the dominance of cumbersome, paper-based processes. STC developed over 40 independent and loosely integrated applications toprovide tax services to businesses and taxpayers in 2010. Since then, upgrading of the systems have not kept pace with emerging technologies. Consequently, available applications, servers, databases and other essential IT components are outdated and need replacement. While some applications could be somewhat improved to support the continued execution of basic tax administration functions, most IT systems are very limited in the extent to which they can support the operational enhancements or delivery of the advanced taxpayer services envisaged by the proposed project. A single, modern and integrated technological platform is needed. This may lead to another challenge in the form of procuring new systems given the technical and potential corruption-related risks. An international bidding process ought to be considered. From a broader governance perspective, there are no governance or operating policies/procedures in place to guide development and maintenance of the IT applications and their associated hardware (e.g. networking, security, development, etc.). Also, STC’s IT department does not have a documented architecture for its information systems, or technical documentation for their maintenance, extension or configuration.
