IT hitch keeps civil servants idle

Most government workers spent most of their summer half day unable to do any work on their computer yesterday because of a technical problem.

Sources said the problems started late on Wednesday morning and complaints began flowing in at the Malta Information Technology Agency, the government unit that operates its IT systems.

The workers complained that their computers were extremely slow. One user said his station took a good 10 to 15 minutes to load after pressing the start button, making it impossible to work. Similarly, documents took long to open and when they finally did, the computer would stall, forcing them to restart their computers.

A spokesman for Mita confirmed the reports, saying the source of the problem were changes under way in the agency's infrastructure. Mita immediately began working on a solution and tests were carried out yesterday morning when the agency sent an e-mail to all government users explaining the situation and advising them of "a slightly longer start-up time or a need to restart your machine".

Tests continued throughout all morning until, at 12.45 p.m.,15 minutes before government workers pack up and leave work, they received another e-mail from Mita asking them to restart their computers. However, some government workers at least said the situation had not improved.

"I am seriously considering bringing my personal laptop with me to work instead of using the computer Mita provides," one worker said. "Such incidents are becoming too frequent to deal with".