The Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology is the designated champion of the application of information and communication technologies within the Government of Malta and the broad national community and economy at large.

About MITI

champion of the application of information and communication technologies within the Government of Malta and the broad national community and economy at large. The Ministry leads the Governments efforts to:

• develop further the Maltese information society and economy, locally and within the international arena, making the Maltese experience a best practice to be followed by other countries;
• strengthen the role of ICT in Government not only to improve service delivery but as a tool of extending democracy and accountability, eradicating clientalism and realise efficiency gains; and
• transform Malta into a regional technology centre of excellence for systems development, training specialisations and service provision in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

e-GOVERNMENT

Malta’s mission to attain a first-class information society is developing constantly and successfully. The initial principles and success factors to this objective were set in the year 2000 and still bear the flag to today’s mission:

• Deliver first-class public service
• Increase citizen participation in government decision making
• Streamline public services and realise efficiency-gains

In this regard, the former Ministry for Justice and Local Government and now the Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology - the champion and the leader of the e-Government programme - has drawn up an ambitious programme to ensure the timely implementation of these objectives. A number of public and private entities are being roped in the initiative to create a unique synergy that will put Malta on the forefront of e-Government in the global ICT scenario.

Government is actively pursuing the attainment of the e-Government initiative in Malta - an exciting opportunity that will lend the opportunity to factually demonstrate to the Maltese citizens and businesses, the tangible benefits that the information and communication technologies can offer to improve their quality of life of Maltese citizens, streamline public administration and promote improvement in the business community.

Today, the programme boasts of a large number of electronic services being launched across Government. This development and promotion of electronic services is seen as a definite method for meeting citizens’ and businesses’ expectations and the perceptions of Government in a modern world. The strive for a new communication channel, in line with an ever more technology dependant world is Government’s effort to be more inclusive and receptive to society’s needs.

The recent deployment of the e-Government portal, mygov.mt, marked yet another significant milestone. mygov.mt serves as the principal point of entry to all e-Government services and complements Government’s information portal gov.mt. The new e-Government portal allows the user to customise or personalise the interface by “switching on” only those services which he/she wants to access. After the user has subscribed to a service he/she may delegate it to other citizens whom the user trusts. The user may also take the form of an Organisation Manager, and thus a natural person who is assigned by an organisation (e.g. a company, a club or NGO) to act on its behalf. The Organisation Manager then subscribes for e-Government services in the organisation’s name and may further delegate them to groups of persons/employees that he/she administers through the portal.

Access to all of e-Government in Malta is authenticated using a single electronic identity (e-ID). It was launched in 2004, and recently (September 2007) upgraded to an enhanced security level using soft PKI digital certificates. The certificate can be used not only for authenticating to sensitive e-Government systems but also to sign electronic documents.

Malta has retained its leading EU ranking in the quality of its e-Government registering substantial qualitative progress in its services and confirming the country’s services as excellent European models in this field. This was confirmed in the European Commission’s annual report on e-Government services provided by the Member States (The User Challenge: Benchmarking the supply of online public services – 7th Measurement, September 2007) prepared by Capgemini for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Information Society and Media.

Representative

Derrick Pisani
Consultant (ICT Corporate Programmes)
Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology
Telephone: (+356) 2122 6808
E-mail: derrick.pisani@gov.mt

Location

Ministry for Investment, Industry and Information Technology 168, Strait Street
Valletta
MALTA

General e-mail address: info.miti@gov.mt
Web: http://www.miti.gov.mt

Issued by:
Ministry for Investments, Industry and Information Technology, Malta November 2007