Malta has placed first in an EU benchmarking exercise of e-government services.

The survey ranked services according to a number of criteria in an exercise carried out every two years. Malta was second in the last survey.

The result was greeted with satisfaction this afternoon by IT Minister Austin Gatt, who said the results were particularly welcome as the concept of e-government was only launched nine years ago.

The Maltese e-government portal registered some four million transactions a month and the payment gateway handles around €40m per year.

The report, commissioned by the European Commission, assessed countries on the basis of online availability of public services, sophistication, user experience, availability of e-procurement and pro-activity.

At a press conference Dr Gatt also replied to questions on e-ID cards and said Malta had applied to the EU for financial assistance, but it had not yet received a reply.

On IT use in the voting process, Dr Gatt said the issue was not technological but one of mentality. Many people, he said, were afraid to use computers to submit their vote.