The 'icom' project was due to begin the roll out of 200 PCs to the e-Envoy's office in May. But the project won't be complete until the end of the year after the e-Envoy's office decided that CGEY could not deliver.

The delay is an embarrassment to the office, which has responsibilities for e-government and e-commerce.

A spokesman for the e-Envoy said: 'Because of out strong internal management processes we were able to spot that CGEY was not in a position to deliver. The system has never been rolled out and no users have been affected. We only pay when we get the product.'

And he confirmed: 'Security was one of the problems.'

IBM was called in to check the decision. The spokesman said: 'IBM agreed with us and have told CGEY to make further refinements to the programme.'

At the moment only some staff can access government systems remotely. Part of the aim of the project was to enable civil servants to access systems securely from other countries.

CGEY had failed to reply to requests for comment.