IT and Communications Minister Austin Gatt this evening inaugurated the new data centre of the Malta Information Technology Agency in Sta Venera, saying it is the fruit of the government’s vision in the IT sector.
The spacious building in Old Railway Track, Sta Venera, is set to become one of the most important hubs of public administration, housing the heart of the government's IT infrastructure.
Dr Gatt said Mita was an example of how public sector workers could be “as good as, if not better” than workers in the private sector, contrary to popular perception.
Although the government was always keen on investing and encouraging the private sector, it believed that data management should be kept in the its domain, he said.
The modern-looking building in Santa Venera was completed “on target and on budget”, he said.
The MITA centre is categorised as a Tier Three information centre, one of very few such centres in the Mediterranean region.
Outgoing Mita chairman Claudio Grech thanked all the workers involved in the project and criticised those who in the past accused Mita employees of hacking, when its servers actually came under external attacks.
Although there was controversy over the unique façade of the building, Mr Grech said the additional costs incurred in its building would be recouped in three years thanks to the building’s energy efficiency.
He said the €7 million spent on developing the building would have been depleted in four years if a building was rented from the private sector.
Before addressing the press, Dr Gatt toured the premises and encouraged the employees to keep up their good work.
The new data centre is expected to meet the government's data storage and processing needs for the next 10 years, and its planning catered for upgrades which will be made as they become available.
The new data centre will take over from the data centres at Gattard House and Mater Dei Hospital. The former will be gradually wound down while the hospital data centre will still be retained.
Work on the new data centre started in October last year. Both the building and the equipment, including security precautions, meet the latest international standards.
The centre has a computer room footprint of 1,600 square metres and incorporates 70 kilometres of copper and three kilometres of fibre cabling.
Also present for the opening was parliamentary assistant Charlo' Bonnici.