Govt shifting to online services

The National National

INFORMATION and Communications Technology Minister Timothy Masiu says the Government has endorsed to start the use of cloud services through a whole-of-government approach as part of implementing cost-effective and efficient computing services.
Masiu stressed that government computing costs were an annual headache and the decision to migrate to the cloud was taken as a cost-saving measure as well.
“Government employs about 122,000 people and this is equivalent to tens of thousands of computers, UPSs, software, servers and volumes of data generated and stored with mounting software licence renewal, security and maintenance costs,” he said.
Masiu said that the Government, on average, spends at least K160 million yearly on general telecommunications and internet services with private internet service providers, and this comprises K40 million on internet access, K100 million on telephony services and K20 million on dedicated internet connections, data storage and website hosting.
“Our commitment to our citizens remains, and that is to keep on slashing the Government’s K160 million annual bill and funding some of the Government’s own ICT goods and services programmes from the savings achieved.”
Masiu reminded all government agencies that the Department of Information and Communication Technology is mandated as the coordinating agency for:

  • PUBLIC sector cloud infrastructure and services specifications and standards and implementation; and,
  • SHARED ICT services to all public bodies. “The National Executive Council has already directed government agencies to coordinate the planning and implementation of all cloud-related services with theDepartment of Information and Communication Technology, and I would be expecting my departmental head and the staff to be kept busy with requests for cloud onboarding and shared services, among other things.”Masiu added that his ministry had started discussions with PNG DataCo on the strategic usage of its data centres.