Statement before

The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry

May 14, 1998

by Peter de Jager

On May 6th in the Washington Post, a reporter, Robert Samuelson, wrote that he was guilty of journalistic incompetence for ignoring the reality of the Year 2000 problem.

He added he was in good company mentioning Newsweek, Time Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Business Week as all having missed perhaps the story of the decade, certainly a story of more importance than the Microsoft Anti-trust debacle.

He also added politicians to the esteemed list of the guilty.

How did he come to this rather disconcerting conclusion? He did something unusual, he spoke to programmers and found they were very nervous about the problem. He decided that if the people working on the problem were running scared, then so should he.

I want to state for the record, that I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who can state publicly they were wrong, and then in addition, make a commitment to correcting their error.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are wasting time in these hearings. The facts of the year 2000 problem are easily accessible, all we have to do, if we have the courage to do it, is put these facts together and act accordingly.

1) Our systems, not all of them, but enough of them, are broken.

We are drowning in proof of this statement. I could provide a litany of companies who are spending millions of dollars to fix their problem. What would be the point of a new list? One need only read the newspapers and magazines for a week to have proof that something is seriously wrong world wide.

We could debate whether or not all these problems require years of effort to fix. Frankly that debate is pointless. The bottom line is that regardless of the size of the individual problems they must be fixed in time, and it makes more sense to fix them today than wait until later.

2) The deadline is fixed and cannot be missed.

The systems we depend upon to run our society cannot handle the year 2000. This is not, as some have suggested, a 'prediction,' it is merely an observation which any novice programmer is capable of making.

3) The Computer industry is not known for reliable on time delivery of systems.

I will offer you no statistics, no academic studies, instead I challenge to perform a very simple survey. Have one of your office clerks contact any 20 CEO's and ask them this simple question. "Over the past three years, what percentage of your computer projects were delivered on time?"

You will find, fewer than 50% of the people you contact can claim a better than 50% on time delivery record.

This then, is the threat facing us.

We have a problem, we have a deadline and we don't have a good history for meeting deadlines. If we have a difficulty understanding these facts, it is because we lack the courage and honesty of Mr. Samuelson

To make matters worse. Most companies are still not treating this problem with the respect it deserves. They mouth platitudes about getting it done on time, but cannot tell you how much work they have because they have not yet completed the most basic of inventories.

The general population is convinced this problem is all hype and exaggeration. They cannot be blamed for their belief. They have two strong arguments in their favor. The inaction of the media in general and the inaction of politicians in particular. If the media is not covering this seriously and the politicians are not informing us it is a problem... then it doesn't exist.

What can you do to turn the tide?

Following Mr. Samuelson's lead would be a good start. Politicians are indeed guilty, as is most everyone else, of ignoring this problem. But unlike everyone else, politicians claim leadership, and therefore have a responsibility to act in matters which affect the common good.

Publically admitting you have ignored a problem which will affect your constituents would be a good start.

What else can you do? In reality not much. You can't personally fix the problem, although you can make funding available to those who can... I am tired of hearing the same refrain from politicians,"I understand the problem, and I am fully commited to fixing it, but sorry, there are no additional funds available."

You can help stamp out the notion that this is hype. If this committee would hold a press conference and state their findings, then reporters who have not yet reached Mr. Samuelson's state of enlightenment would perhaps begin to understand the problem.

In Conclusion, this problem is real and the consequences of failure are getting more difficult to ignore. I hope we have the courage to face the problem squarely and act accordingly.

I wish us all the very best of luck,

Peter de Jager