MANILA, Philippines--The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) has formed a unit meant to reform disbursement of funds for government information and communications technology projects.

This unit will use e-government fund guidelines drafted by Bearing Point, a foreign management and consulting firm managing the E3 project.

E3 is a five-year, $9.92 million project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) that targets social services projects using information technology.

The government has allotted P1 billion last year to fund projects endorsed by the CICT. The agency, in turn, selects proposals submitted by various agencies.

The new guidelines are meant to improve the system starting with how agencies submit their proposals.

"We aim to be more productive this time in managing the fund. We would be able to provide funding to allow agencies to hire experts to help them create proposals," said CICT commissioner Tim Diaz de Rivera.

Diaz de Rivera is in charge of e-government matters at the CICT.

"The budget for some of the projects we endorsed last year (to the Department of Budget and Management) have been re-aligned so we will be including them this year," he told INQUIRER.net via a phone interview.

The CICT has proposed a billion-peso fund for this year awaiting approval from Congress.

The e-government fund guidelines "reflect newly introduced management processes that have re-engineered the application and monitoring and quality assurance procedures recommended to strengthen the administration of the fund," according to Bearing Point.