Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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Como siempre.... todo lo dejamos para ultima hora!!! Miren la "perla" del
Seguro Social y de Telecom sacando excusas debido al bloqueo que hubo en la
carretera panamericana. No debio ser hecho el trabajito a mediados o al
principio del 99 o el anno pasado o el antepasado? Mmmmmm.....
Saludos, Nestor Raul
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: (fwd) Colombia Scrambles With Y2K Problem
Organization: Copyright 1999 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet)
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 6:40:02 PST
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- At age 59, Alvaro Rojas is just a few
months from retirement and worried sick that his entire employment
history will be erased by the dreaded Year 2000 computer bug. So
he's seeking a written record.
``With all this fuss about the change of year, it's better to
have everything on paper,'' Rojas says as he waits in line at a
Social Security office, only to be told the document he needs can't
possibly be ready until after the New Year.
Rojas has good reason to worry. The Social Security Institute,
with the labor history for 4.5 million Colombians, still has not
solved its Y2K problem.
The database software on which all pre-retirement records are
kept is not compliant. The manufacturer says it's pirated. Social
Security officials refuse to buy the upgrade and are working
feverishly to migrate all the data over to a different program --
with no guarantee of success.
There are serious questions whether many other crucial
government records systems -- particularly in finance and health
care -- will be ready in time for the millennium bug. Contingency
plans are already in full swing.
Clocks are being turned ahead on airport radars, mounds of
public records are being printed out, some medical devices will be
placed out of commission temporarily and many government workers
will be getting their January paychecks in December.
Like many Latin American nations hit hard by last year's
economic recession, Colombia has had to scramble for resources to
confront Y2K, the legacy of computers programmed to express years
with just two digits, so that 2000 could be read as 1900 in
systems, causing crashes or garbling data.
Government Y2K coordinators say the public and private sectors
have spent a total of $1.4 billion on bug fixes -- nearly 2 percent
of gross domestic product -- and that utilities, transportation and
the financial sector are in good shape.
The central bank, however, will have 57 percent more cash on
hand to bolster liquidity.
In terms of readiness, there are doubts about everything from
traffic lights in mid-sized and small cities to the nation's air
traffic control.
``The country is about 70 percent ready,'' says Hernando
Carvalho, a congressman and Y2K expert who says Colombia was very
late in launching its repair work.
The pension system is a case in point.
The Latin America vice president for Unify, the California
software company whose program has been used by the Social Security
agency for nine years to track Colombian labor history, says the
agency has refused to pay for the upgrade and license it needs to
protect it from Y2K.
Instead, Karen Joslyn said, it is using pirated software.
``Basically, they stole the program,'' she said.
Social Security's Y2K coordinator, Leonardo Chavarro, says its
Colombian supplier is to blame for the alleged pirating and that
Unify is demanding an exorbitant price for the upgrade. So another
company is writing a new program to which all the data will be
transferred by mid-December, he says.
Computer consultants say such last-minute data migration doesn't
leave enough time for identifying and removing errors. Besides,
large software projects, as a rule, are never done on time.
In health care, the already overburdened public hospital system
is seriously lagging and officials say many billing systems and
some life-sustaining devices will not be ready on time.
``One possible scenario is that someone will arrive at a
hospital with their health ID card and will be rejected because no
one will be able to confirm they've paid their bills,'' Carvalho
said.
In the eastern regional capital of Bucaramanga, only in
mid-November did work begin on public hospital computers. In other
regions, funds have not yet even arrived to start repairs.
Authorities say some medical devices in public hospitals
nationwide -- including respirators, X-ray and ultrasound machines --
won't be Y2K compliant on time and will be removed from service for
the first days of 2000.
Civil aviation is also a serious concern, as 80 percent of
north-south flights in South America pass over this rugged Andean
nation. Contingency plans call for switching flight monitoring to
manual control if necessary.
As if the technological and financial challenges of Y2K
readiness weren't difficult enough, Colombia is also plagued by a
decades-old civil conflict in which leftist rebels regularly blow
up oil pipelines and electrical towers.
The state-owned telecommunications company, Telecom, has had its
Y2K work affected. It just disclosed that a 25-day blockade of the
Panamerican highway last month by peasants demanding government aid
had set back its Y2K work in the southern region.
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