November came to a close with Hon Minister Austin Gatt launching the Next Generation eGovernment. This is considered to be the evolution of Government’s electronic services with the main aim of promoting citizen centricity.
Government started offering electronic services in 1999 and over the past twelve years it has managed to transform the way public service operates. The next generation of eGovernment will give citizens and business greater transparency, more personalized services, more influence over service design and delivery and a greater level of trust.
Such a centre, that includes 1,600 square metres of technical space for dedicated computer rooms, was necessary because of the growing hosting requirements to satisfy the myriad of ICT solutions procured across government and planned to be procured over the next decade.
The needs to maximise levels of availability to offer 24x7 services and to operate in a greener way had also been identified. Meanwhile, the centre is to ensure increased physical security and business continuity requirements. It also caters for the need to adopt new technologies for economies of scale and efficiency.
Malta merits such an investment, having placed first in EU eGovernment Benchmarking in 2010, ranked fifth highest in the percentage of employees with ICT skills in Europe, and fourth among European countries in terms of eSkills activities by the government. The innovative deal is the brainchild of Claudio Grech, CEO of MITA, the same person who for a short while acted as main negotiator on behalf of the government on the multi-million euro residential ICT office complex (SmartCity) being built at Ricasoli by the Gulf Arab corporation Tecom. Visiting MITA’s website one appreciates its three strategic drivers, which are job creation, support of education and development, and technology. When fully functional the Microsoft innovation centre will, in turn, save millions a year in licence fees and pave the way for trained ICT workers in the digital economy.
The inauguration was presided by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, Austin Gatt and MITA Chairman Claudio Grech. Prior to the official launch, journalists were taken on a media tour of the new Data Centre.
He was speaking during the launch of the second generation of the e-government project, which was introduced 12 years ago.
The adventure to make various e-government services available online had been met with a lot of scepticism 12 years ago, Dr Gatt said, luckily it has also been met with hope and that is what made Malta’s e-governance rank first in Europe three times in a row. The results speak for themselves, he said.
Read more: MT: Gatt urges public servants to embrace e-government