Masiu: A waste of money

By CLARISSA MOI
THE national data centre set up in 2011 has been called “a failed government investment” and is now being reviewed by the Information, Communication Technology ministry.
Minister Timothy Masiu said the centre was set up by the previous Government through a China Exim bank loan arrangement, where Huawei technology was adopted.
“At the time, the technology was considered state-of-the-art and at its peak. Over 40 public service agencies were connected using various aspects of the service,” he said.
It was a component of the integrated government information system project to provide audio/video conferencing facilities, a central redundancy (data backup) service and internet services for government agencies.
He said it was now 10 years old and technology had evolved.
“We only have a handful of government agencies using the service. We also have a small but faithful team doing their best to maintain internet and website hosting services,’’ he said.
Masiu said it was disappointing that the past Government had committed a large amount of money “only to see these services decline over a period of time”.
“Over the years, poor funding allocation for maintenance coupled with lack of initiative to develop a policy framework around it has led us here,” he said.
“To some extent, we can conclude that is truly a failed investment.”
He said the current Government had drawn up a PNG Digital Transformation policy and would conduct public consultations on a Public Service Digital Transformation Bill 2020.
“The bill will set the standards for data, network, cyber security and accessibility. One of the (reasons) to consult within the ICT community is the justification of the national data center.”
He said Cloud solutions were offered by the big players in the global market such as Amazon and Microsoft.