Matthew Gatt, the new chief executive officer of the Malta Information Technology Agency, has just stepped into the shoes of his predecessor who fell victim to the controversial security breach on e-mail accounts of government employees last year. With his feet firmly on the ground, Mr Gatt acknowledges the sterling work done by MITA and its predecessors that has been translated into the award-winning e-government services and support for the rise of the Maltese information society and promises to consolidate it with the bottom-line always in sight.
"It is a challenging position and I intend to proceed with the assistance of MITA's 320 employees and the diverse set of relationships that we have with critical suppliers in the industry, who help us deliver and take the business forward on a daily basis," insists Mr Gatt in an interview with i-Tech. An engineering graduate, he was deputy CEO and chief operations officers at MITA since 2007 and previously held technical and managerial posts at Mepa and in private industry.
MITA is the most important IT company in Malta, working on national projects and vital infrastructure on a national scale. His new approach will try to bridge what he sees as a gap in expectations.
"In some instances there currently seems to be a gap between what we actually deliver, people's perception of what we deliver and what is in fact needed. As we move forward we will be working on improving the understanding of these three important aspects to ensure we focus on value for money and excellence in whatever we do."
Yet despite all efforts, MITA was at the centre of a controversy last year when a security breach was registered on the servers hosting the e-mail accounts of government employees, including high-profile or sensitive public figures such as Members of Parliament and members of the judiciary.
"We need to understand that anyone in the ICT business faces information security risks and it is not something exclusive to MITA. Anyone who follows such matters in the international news will have a general understanding that major agencies across the globe are hit by such incidents. We have increased investment in our security measures, with more critical and tighter security measures now in place," reassured the new MITA CEO.
"Undoubtedly, addressing security can impose a level of discomfort for our users. For example, many of the filters imposed on certain websites are put in place solely for security purposes. Nonetheless, catering for security at the outset is crucial - we need to understand what the risks are and put the necessary measures and technology in place to ensure that these risks do not escalate into a security issue. This is a priority for MITA. We must maintain continual vigilance and state of readiness in all aspects of information security. When incidents do happen, we need to be able to respond quickly and effectively to neutralise any negative outcome."
A couple of weeks ago i-Tech reported how four Maltese e-government services were selected as best practice in the EU, and the MITA CEO believes this is no coincidence.
"We have focused on making e-government one of the flag bearers of our activities. A lot of the accolades come in particular business sectors and I think we can be very pleased with the take-up and use of these services. When you look at what is commonly available for businesses and citizens, we have particular successes with Inland Revenue and the administrative events integral to car ownership, where even by international benchmarks, the take-up is very satisfactory.
"There are of course other areas that need to be worked upon, one of them being ensuring that each citizen has a secure identity for interacting with the government over the web. We are now at the crucial stage of a National Identity Management Systems Programme which will provision nation-wide electronic identity cards that allow a number of diverse new e-government services to happen in a secure environment.
"This will lead us to having a much richer online environment within which to drive the delivery and take-up of e-government services to a new level."
Another key upcoming initiative is e-learning, where MITA will be applying ICT to implement government's vision to link teachers, students and parents through an encompassing ICT solution. The agency has also commenced procurement procedures for an Enterprise Information Management Solution, which will provide a structured way for government to classify and store its information.
Despite all these initiatives, you still encounter government employees complaining about the level of internet access or support they get from MITA when they need it.
"MITA works hard to ensure that the everyday ICT needs of its clients are met and our service call centre typically receives around 520 calls per day, the vast majority of which are requests for assistance and servicing ICT infrastructure," Mr Gatt said. Yet he emphasised that the office is not home and there is no place for entertainment sites like YouTube in the office. As for spam on gov.mt e-mail boxes, it is a continuous struggle.
"There may the perception that a lot of spam gets through, but this is relative. MITA utilises industry leading spam protection. Out of the 2.5 million e-mails received through our system every day, 1.7 million of them are blocked or tagged as spam; the majority of the remainder are legitimate e-mail."
Other employees ask why MITA is still sticking to Microsoft Windows XP, launched in 2001, and has skipped the newer version of Windows, named Vista. The latest version, named Windows 7, will be launched next month.
"There was no pressing business case to change away from XP and we are still very happy with what XP offers us. Windows 7 will no doubt also go through a 'settling in period', as did all its predecessors. Of course, there will come a time when we will need to readdress our desktop environment and we will be looking at the infrastructure solutions that will meet our requirements. At the end of the day it's the total cost of ownership and the benefits of any eventual change that will determine what solution or solutions we opt for."
Money is an important issue. Funded by the government, MITA has to stick to a budget and wherever possible find cheaper and not just better solutions. This is clearly visible in the "open source vs proprietary" software issue.
"For the foreseeable future we will undoubtedly operate in a diverse environment, featuring both open source and propriety software," explained Mr Gatt.
"At the same time, we will be looking at reducing certain costs through the opportunities that open source software offers. In doing so it is important to look at the whole cost structure and value brought to the organisation, so it is not a simple decision between open source or propriety software - we need to ensure that the software used is fit to deliver the IT solutions that suit the needs of government."