MoITT To Be Completely Restructured Under World Bank DEEP Project with a focus on evaluating the current structure of the Ministry, identifying gaps and areas for improvement, and providing actionable recommendations for its transformation.

Key Facts at a Glance

• Pakistan’s Ministry of IT & Telecom (MoITT) is undergoing a complete structural overhaul
• Funded under the $77.73 million World Bank DEEP project, approved March 2024
• A specialised consultancy firm is being hired to design the restructuring roadmap
• Focus: evaluate current ministry structure, identify gaps, align with international best practices
• Three DEEP components: Digital Services ($58M) | Business Portal ($14.73M) | Project Management ($5M)
• 849,177 digital IDs already issued since August 2025 via the PakID app
• Critical gap: Pakistan Business Portal has processed zero transactions despite being operational
• Only $5.32 million (7.39%) of $77.73M has been disbursed so far
• Project closure deadline: July 31, 2028

Pakistan IT Ministry to Be Completely Restructured for the Next Decade: Here Is What It Means?

• Pakistan’s federal government has formally initiated the process of completely restructuring the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT), not just for the next year, but as a ten-year transformation roadmap.

• The Ministry, in collaboration with the World Bank, is implementing the Digital Economy Enhancement Project (DEEP) worth $77+million.

• Under this project, MoITT has initiated the process of hiring a consultancy firm for the restructuring of the ministry, to provide expertise and a clear, workable roadmap for its transformation over the next decade.

• The main focus of the consultancy will be on evaluating the current structure of the Ministry, identifying gaps and areas for improvement, and providing actionable recommendations for its transformation.

• The consulting firm will work closely with MoITT officials to develop a comprehensive restructuring plan that aligns with international best practices and positions the Ministry for future success in the rapidly evolving technological and digital landscape.

In plain terms: Pakistan is not just upgrading its IT ministry’s software or adding a new department. It is bringing in global experts to tear down the current structure, identify what is broken, and rebuild it from the ground up for the next ten years.

What is DEEP? The $77+ Million Programme Behind This

To understand the restructuring, you need to understand what DEEP actually is.

Read More: Govt Approves Telecom Infrastructure Sharing Framework

The objective of the Digital Economy Enhancement Project (DEEP) is to enhance the government’s capacity to deliver digitally-enabled public services to citizens and businesses.

Managed by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, this programme seeks to reengineer the delivery of citizen services using digital platforms, laying the foundation for a more transparent, connected, and citizen-focused governance model.

The project was approved by the World Bank in March 2024 and runs until July 31, 2028.

Here is how the $77+ million is allocated across three components:

Component 1: What Is Being Built for Citizens

This is the most visible and impactful component, the infrastructure that ordinary Pakistanis will eventually interact with directly.

The DEEP project proposes a whole-of-government approach to develop the framework and technology that will increase access to and promote the use of digital services across Pakistan.

The project will develop the Pakistan Digital Government Enterprise Architecture, which will create a government ecosystem transcending existing processes, including by mapping roles and responsibilities and setting key principles across technology, business, information, and service design.

What has already been Delivered: MoITT To Be Completely Restructured Under World Bank DEEP Project

• Following the enactment of the Digital Nation Pakistan Act, 2025, the country saw a soft launch of its national digital identity system in August 2025. From August to December 2025, authorities issued 849,177 digital IDs.

• The Digital Vault, accessible via the PakID app, now supports seven verifiable credentials, including family registration certificates, vehicle registration documents, vaccination certificates, and de-materialized national ID cards.

• The National Data Exchange Layer (NDXL), a key backbone for inter-agency data sharing, has processed 1.2 million transactions, with seven entities integrated into the platform as of January 2026, and federal regulations approved to govern the data exchange.

Component 2: Pakistan Business Portal — The Critical Gap

This is where the honest story gets uncomfortable, and why it matters for the restructuring decision.

Component 2 will support the Board of Investment (BoI) to modernise regulatory regimes in Pakistan at three levels of government: federal, provincial, and municipal.

The first stage entails reviewing, mapping, and developing a catalogue of registrations, certificates, licences, and others across the three levels of government, potentially including up to 800 government agencies relevant to dealing with investing and operating businesses in Pakistan.

The objective is ambitious: a single digital portal where businesses can register, obtain licences, pay taxes, and comply with regulations, without visiting a single government office.

The reality as of early 2026:

Despite a $14.73 million budget aimed at streamlining government-to-business services, the project has recorded zero transactions on the Pakistan Business Portal.

Approved in March 2024, nearly two years later, financial disbursement remains sluggish; only $5.32 million has been released, totalling just 7.39% of total financing.

The World Bank confirmed that no RLCO (Registration, Licences, Certificates and Other) transactions have been processed to date, and no B2G services have been moved online.

Component 3: Project Management — Who Is Running This

Component 3 finances the establishment and operation of one Project Management Unit (PMU) at MoITT and four Project Implementation Units (PIUs), at #NADRA, jointly at #NITB and #PITB, #Ignite, and #BoardofInvestment, responsible for day-to-day project administration, procurement, financial management, communications, and outreach.

The PMU at MoITT is led by a Project Director with a core team including specialists in financial management, procurement, environmental and social safeguards, monitoring and evaluation, and communications.

Why the MoITT Needs Restructuring?

The decision to restructure is not symbolic. It is a direct response to documented institutional failures.

Problem 1 — Coordination gap between federal and provincial governments

The World Bank pointed out that MoUs between MoITT and the provincial governments, as laid down in the financing agreement of DEEP, are still pending, more than a year after the project began.

The #WorldBank stressed the need for stronger coordination among project implementation entities and service providers in federal and provincial governments for onboarding of provincial and local government services.

Problem 2 — Slow disbursement and execution

The World Bank currently rates the overall progress toward the development objective as “Moderately Satisfactory.” While the overall risk rating has improved from “Substantial” to “Moderate,” macroeconomic risk continues to be assessed as “High.” Broader enabling reforms are still a work in progress.

Problem 3 — Business portal delivering zero output

Despite the Pakistan Business Portal being the centrepiece of ease-of-doing-business reforms, and a key pitch to foreign investors, it has processed no transactions in two years of operation.

Problem 4 — MoITT’s structure is outdated

The consultancy’s core responsibility will be to assess the current state of public services across federal and provincial institutions, identify gaps and inefficiencies, and build a framework to digitise and unify these services under a centralised digital architecture.

The ministry was not designed for the pace of technological change Pakistan now faces. Its current hierarchy, procurement processes, and inter-departmental communication channels are built for an analog era, not a decade that will be defined by AI, cloud infrastructure, and digital identity systems.

What the Restructuring Will Actually Do?

The consultancy will conduct a detailed inventory of existing public services, prioritise them for digital transformation, and perform business process reengineering to enhance efficiency, remove redundancies, and improve end-user satisfaction.

All service designs will adhere to national policy guidelines and compliance protocols, ensuring interoperability across platforms and jurisdictions.

Security and privacy remain key pillars of the project. The firm will be responsible for implementing high-level cybersecurity measures aligned with both domestic and international standards, including end-to-end encryption, secure payment integration, penetration testing, risk and vulnerability assessments, and the development of a robust incident response framework.

In practical terms, the restructuring targets five outcomes:

1. Unified digital architecture:

All federal and provincial digital systems speak to each other through a single data backbone (NDXL).

2. Single-window business compliance:

One portal for all licences, registrations, and certificates across 800+ government agencies.

3. Financial inclusion for women:

The project will promote financial inclusion by enabling women in particular to open bank accounts or apply remotely for credit through a smartphone application, contributing to addressing barriers such as limited mobility and digital literacy.

4. A ministry built for the next decade:

Roles, hierarchies, and processes redesigned around digital-first governance rather than legacy bureaucratic models.

What This Means for Pakistan’s Digital Economy?

Pakistan’s IT exports hit $3.2 billion in FY2025, significant but well below the government’s $5 billion target. The gap is not a talent problem. Pakistan produces over 30,000 IT graduates annually.

The gap is in infrastructure and governance. Foreign investors and Pakistani diaspora looking to set up technology businesses consistently cite regulatory complexity, slow approvals, and disconnected provincial and federal systems as the top barriers.

A properly restructured MoITT, with a functioning Pakistan Business Portal, a live digital identity system, and a modern internal architecture, directly addresses every one of those barriers.

The DEEP project is aligned with the 2018 Digital Pakistan Policy, in particular the objective calling for the establishment of a holistic, government-wide enterprise architecture and the integration of government databases and systems through e-government service portals.

The restructuring is not just about making government more efficient. It is about making Pakistan more competitive for foreign direct investment, more accessible for startups, and more functional for 240 million citizens who currently navigate some of the most fragmented public services in Asia.

Key Milestones — What Has Been Done vs What Is Left

Frequently Asked Questions – MoITT To Be Completely Restructured Under World Bank DEEP Project

Q1: What is the MoITT restructuring about?
Ans. The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication is hiring a consultancy firm to evaluate its current structure, identify gaps and areas for improvement, and provide a comprehensive restructuring roadmap aligned with international best practices, covering the next decade.

Q2: What is the DEEP project?
Ans. DEEP, the Digital Economy Enhancement Project, is a $77.73 million World Bank-funded initiative aimed at enhancing the government’s capacity to deliver digitally-enabled public services to citizens and businesses across Pakistan.

Q3: How much of the DEEP budget has been spent?
Ans. Only $5.32 million, 7.39% of the total $77.73 million, has been disbursed as of early 2026.

Q4: What is the PakID app?
Ans. PakID is Pakistan’s national digital identity app, launched following the Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025. It currently provides seven verifiable credentials including national ID cards, family registration certificates, vehicle registration, and vaccination records. Over 849,177 digital IDs were issued between August and December 2025.

Q5: Why has the Pakistan Business Portal recorded zero transactions?
Ans. Despite being designed to digitise regulatory approvals across 800+ government agencies, institutional frameworks have been notified but core business-facing components remain non-operational. No RLCO transactions have been processed to date.

Q6: When does the DEEP project close?
Ans. The project is scheduled to close on July 31, 2028.

Q7: Are provincial governments part of this project?
Ans. Yes, but MoUs between MoITT and all four provincial governments are still pending, which has been flagged by the World Bank as a key coordination risk.

The Bottom Line – MoITT To Be Completely Restructured Under World Bank DEEP Project

Pakistan’s IT ministry restructuring is the most significant institutional reform in the country’s digital governance history, and it is happening right now, backed by $77.73 million in World Bank financing.

The early wins are real and measurable: 849,177 digital IDs issued, 1.2 million NDXL transactions processed, and a legal framework now in place through the Digital Nation Pakistan Act. These are genuine milestones.

But the gaps are equally real. Zero business portal transactions. Provincial MoUs still unsigned. Only 7.39% of project funds disbursed nearly two years in. These are not minor delays, they are structural failures that the incoming consultancy must address head-on.

The decade-long restructuring roadmap being designed right now will determine whether Pakistan becomes a genuinely competitive digital economy by 2035, or remains a country with world-class tech talent and world-class bureaucratic bottlenecks.

The next two years, before DEEP closes in July 2028, are critical.

MoITT To Be Completely Restructured Under World Bank DEEP Project with a focus on evaluating the current structure of the Ministry, identifying gaps and areas for improvement, and providing actionable recommendations for its transformation.

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