Focusing on Core Business Areas and Government's Strategic Programme

The year 2004 was the year that ushered Malta’s entry into the European Union. Faithful to its commitment to support the business of Government, MITTS Ltd has been key to a number of critical application related projects designed to support and facilitate the new economic and political circumstances. Notable ones are the Structural Funds Database, for the Office of the Prime Minister the Agricultural and Fisheries Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) and the Paying Agency Management System (PAMS) both for the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment. Nearly all these projects presented common characteristics: tight deadlines, and business requirements that had to be researched and painstakingly defined together with the client due to the totally new scenario represented by European membership. In all cases, partnering with the client has featured very prominently, so the competence and proficiency boost acquired during the project life cycle is effectively a result of a perfect symbiosis between MITTS Ltd and its client base.

Below is the full list of business solutions which MITTS Ltd has, in partnership with the relevant Ministries and Departments, launched throughout 2004:

• E-Procurement System for Office Automation Hardware and Software in the Central Information Management

Unit within the Office of the Prime Minister • Paying Agency Management System (PAMS) • Agricultural and Fisheries Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) • Structural Funds Database • Export Refund System • Major extensions to functionality to the Lands Registry and Certification System • INTRASAT Web Front End • Ministry of Finance Portal • Major extensions to functionality to the Accounts

Receivable System • Major extensions to functionality to the Tax Compliance

Unit Data Warehousing • VAT Information Exchange System • E-Government VAT Returns and Declaration Forms • VAT on e-Services • Development and implementation of the System for the

Exchange of Excise Data (SEED) • Extension of European Council Networks • Connection of Maltese embassies and missions to the

Malta Government Network using VOIP technologies • Implementation of the new design fully-redundant

Document Registry hosting platform

MITTS Ltd also continued to partner with the Ministry for Investments, Industry and Information Technology (MIIIT) and its appointed subcontractors from the private enterprise for the quality assurance, deployment and hosting of the following e-services on its state-of-the-art e-Government hosting platform:

• Phase 1 of the e-ID (Authentication and Registration) • Employment and Training Corporation portal • National Statistics Office portal • MIIIT website

Improving Quality of Service through e-Procurement, MITTS Ltd developed the first e-Procurement application launched by Government to support the decentralisation of the procurement of standard office automation hardware and software for the Public Service. The system provides suppliers with the up-to-date information required to deliver quality software and hardware supplies according to the standards formulated by the Central Information Management Unit. It also serves to authorise public officers to purchase IT equipment with far greater flexibility.

It is pertinent to underline that the involvement of MITTS Ltd in the e-Procurement framework was the result of the strategic decision to withdraw from non-core business activity.

The Government of Malta was to be integrated with this system of networks and security protocols by the date of entry into the EU. To enable this, the Cabinet Office, through the Central Information Management Unit, appointed MITTS Ltd to provide expert technical advice to the project team that was set up in January 2003

Procurement of desktops, managed by MITTS Ltd through the enabling Tender for PC Procurement, was one such activity. By building on the latest technologies and working with the Central Information Management Unit, MITTS Ltd was in May 2004 able to withdraw from this function whilst at the same ensuring that the handed-over business function would be more transparent to purchasers as well as to suppliers.

EU Structural Funds Database

The EU Structural Funds Database (SFD) is a business solution for the management and allocation of Structural and Cohesion funds for which Malta has become eligible since it became a member of the European Union in May 2004. Besides maintaining details about the various projects, the system allows the Planning and Priorities Co-ordination Division of the Office of the Prime Minister to monitor and control project progress and status, as well as relevant budgets and financials. Among the primary features of the solution is the simplification of the financing plan, which is the means by which funds are allocated in order of national priority, and its flexible multi-user functionality. Authorised users in different Government or public entities can update the central data repository in real time on the various aspects concerning their project selected for EU funding.

Josef Vella, the project manager of the SFD, had this to say: “When starting any IS project, one of the first things you look at is the existing business process or any legacy system which may be in place. In this case there was none of this, because the business requirements literally had to be researched together with the client, since this was a totally new scenario. Understanding and learning the various EU regulations and guidelines was key, and this had to be done within very short timescales. Success of the project depended on a close synergy between MITTS Ltd, client and experts from the European Commission Twinning Programme. In the end, considering the initial drawbacks and tight schedule, I believe that the key ingredients for success were the flexibility of our approach, our sound technical knowledge — since we knew what we were doing all along — perseverance, and above all an excellent relationship based on trust which we had built with our client”.

Integrated Administration and Control System

The importance of agriculture to the EU is axiomatic. It was therefore natural for Government to seek to leverage ICTs in support of all activities related to the registration and control of land parcels, crops and livestock for the efficient management of applications for aid, inspections and a spate of other activities.

The Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) is a state-of-the-art GIS-based system that uses the latest mapping technologies to store, manage and manipulate data about all agricultural land parcels and related physical attributes. Complying with stringent EU technical specifications on image pixel size precision and tolerances, the system has the flexibility to dynamically associate aerial photographs and the geometrical properties of the land parcels to the various data attributes such as farmer and irrigation details, the characteristics of field topsoil, crops grown and so forth. This data is then used for the management of farmers’ applications for aid under various EU schemes, their investigation and verification by Government officials, and calculation of each farmer’s aid entitlement.

Requirements for the IACS project evolved in tight liaison with officials from the Ministry of Rural Affairs and the Environment and the collaboration of Italian experts. “No doubt”, says project manager Richard Schembri, “the key to success to a project with such tight deadlines have been

our strong rapport with the client and our technical skills — particularly business analysis which proved very demanding and problematic to resolve from the very outset.”

Paying Agency Management System

The designation of paying agencies by member states is one of the many commitments that are tied to accession to the EU. The Paying Agency Management System is a solution for the management of Guarantee expenditure under the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF).

The Ministry of Rural Affairs and the Environment first commissioned MITTS Ltd to carry out a thorough scoping and analysis of the business requirements in November 2002. The biggest challenge was to develop a multi-user system that would not prove too high on maintenance due to the frequent changes in regulations decreed by the European Commission. For this purpose a system of xtables was developed which meant that changes to budget lines could be updated dynamically and in a totally parametrised fashion. Standard interfaces also had to be developed to allow the uploading and downloading of the required data from other systems such as the IACS. “In spite of the stringent timescales and the very steep learning curve”, argued project manager, Josef Vella, “we delivered because we possessed the flexibility, competence and perseverance that was required for a project of this nature. Throughout the project we also developed a strong synergy with the client and with the German experts from the twinning project that enabled us to adopt a fast track approach by taking a ‘lessons-learnt’ approach from other similar systems reviewed in Luxembourg and Germany.”

Extending the European Council Networks to Malta

European Union membership mandates that all member states participate in fora and working groups for the ongoing communication and dissemination of policies, directives, regulations and various other publications. Classified documentation produced — or EU classified information (EUCI) — must be handled in accordance with the Security Regulations of the Council of the European Union (2001/264/EC) and exchanged via a number of established European Council Networks.

The Government of Malta was to be integrated with this system of networks and security protocols by the date of entry into the EU. To enable this, the Cabinet Office, through the Central Information Management Unit, appointed MITTS Ltd to provide expert technical advice to the project team that was set up in January 2003. The team included executives from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Armed Forces of Malta, the Management Efficiency Unit and the Central Information Management Unit.

Our responsibility included carrying out an overall Information Security Risk Assessment and assisting the various players to identify the appropriate security measures to adopt. This involved site visits, defining requirements, site planning, product evaluation and document and process reviews.

Eventually in April 2004, following a series of rigorous audits, the EU gave its stamp of approval to a system of security networks, registries and procedures that were a first of its kind in Malta.

Mario Spiteri, Head of our Information Security and Risk Management Department, was elated when the visiting EU delegation praised the team for its competence and collaboration shown to bring such a project to successful conclusion. “No similar project had been undertaken in

Malta before. We were faced with new technologies and hitherto unknown regulations which we had to acquire and understand in a very short time. And with such tight deadlines the pressures were indeed high! Though the Security Regulations themselves gave the necessary direction on the measures to be taken, we had to think clearly and plan ahead to take into account the particular needs of the area being targeted. The circumstances no doubt tested the team’s flexibility and in the end took its technical capabilities to new horizons.”

The Embassies Connectivity Project

“The embassies connectivity project stands out as a model project in many respects”, says the man behind the original idea, Robert Galea. “It is a testimony of how MITTS Ltd has creatively combined experience and know-how to produce a tangible business solution that has reaped a total return on investment within months of inception!”

The initial phase project, which began in May 2003, was completed in March 2004 when ten Maltese embassies were successfully and securely connected to the Malta Government Network (MAGNET). The solution allowed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to drastically reduce its costs by dispensing with the various local email servers, the old connectivity technology — 64kbps Frame Relay — and especially the exorbitant international service provision costs. The new set-up allows embassy staff to benefit from email, internet and application services obtained from servers residing in Malta in a completely secure fashion and using a bandwidth many times the previous one. Furthermore, the infrastructure deployed is also designed to support VoIP transmission. Each embassy has, in fact, been equipped with one or more IP phones that enable (international) calls to be made between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the respective Embassy at no cost, thus leading to further savings. It is planned that after the upgrade of the current MAGNET to the new enhanced MAGNET II, (which is VoIP-ready), and the VoIP initiative within Government, all Ministries and Departments will eventually also be able to call the Embassies at no cost.

Besides recovering the capital outlay of the project within less than a year, yearly recurrent costs have been reduced by approximately 70%.

The increased bandwidth has also made it possible to extend the Enterprise Management Architecture (EMA) project to the Permanent Representation in Brussels and the New York Embassy. Others will follow. EMA at the Embassies gives the added logistical advantage of providing services such as remote desktop trouble-shooting, patch management, centralised or automated software distribution, and software and hardware configuration inventorisation. In the process, the need to fly out to an embassy or engage costly local support services has been drastically diminished.

Information systems that can now be accessed in a secure fashion include the Common Database (CdB), the Social Security System (SABS) and shortly the VISA System. This facility was previously not available when the old set-up was in place.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs have considered this project so successful that MITTS Ltd has been commissioned to extend this service to include all the Maltese embassies and missions abroad, beginning with Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, China and Russia. Embassies and missions in Canberra, Geneva and Vienna have also been recently connected.

We believe that we must promote continuous self-improvement and cultivate innovation and creativity. As a Company we will encourage life long learning and on going development and aim to develop and harness the potential of our people.

MITTS Ltd believes that it can be a positive asset to the private sector by placing at their disposal a number of its assets and its wealth of experience in the implementation of large IS projects