Interior Ministry's IT development centre needs additional €105 million
The Interior Ministry's Centre for Information Technology and Development (SMIT), which manages some of the state's most sensitive registers and systems, needs additional funding of more than €100 million over the next decade. According to daily Postimees, half of SMIT's hardware is obsolete.
SMIT will need at least €104.7 million to continue providing services, an audit commissioned by the ministry and carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisors shows.
In 2018 the budget of SMIT, including external funding, is €37 million, and the share of external funding for the development of new IT systems is a mere 16%. Since the maintenance of information systems cannot be funded with money from external sources, this position has the potential to seriously strain SMIT's budget.
The audit's results thus make it very clear that there isn't enough money in SMIT's budget to maintain and update the existing hardware and software.
Some €14 million worth of hardware is obsolete, amounting to 40% of all of its fixed assets. In addition, the institution's development teams need to be expanded. Starting next year, €1.9 million are to be added to the salary fund, with the objective to bring the institution's salary level to the average income in the ITC field.
SMIT manages a total of 118 state services, 28 of which are considered essential and include the ESTER operative communication system as well as the population register. Its databases are also used for the data exchange between countries, border crossings and other vital services, for instance by police officers, border guards, rescuers, ambulances, the Rescue Center, the Prison Service and the Estonian Defence Forces.
SMIT offers 118 services, 28 of which are services vital for the health of people.
Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS
