The state-owned joint stock company Slovensko IT is to deliver a new version of Slovakia in mobile and a new Slovensko.sk interface by the end of the year. Minister for Investments, Regional Development and Informatization Peter Balík he says he has no choice. These are projects financed from old European funds, which we can draw only this year, otherwise this money will be forfeited.
“We don’t even think about this alternative, the state-owned stock company simply has to deliver what we expect,” says Balík.
One of the goals of the ministry under his leadership is to hold more IT competitions with delivery within one year and for a smaller amount of money, on the order of one million to 5 million euros per project. According to him, this can be a way for the state to deliver services to citizens faster.
He goes on to say in the interview:
what other IT projects financed from old European funds need to be completed by the end of the year; in which areas the state lacks IT experts; whether it is realistic to launch other digitized life situations this year; why does the digital seniors want to apologize to the seniors for the project.
You recently said that it would be important for informatization to be covered by a government office rather than a supra-ministerial body and not a ministry. Why?
First of all, it is important that computerization has a clear leader who will also be interested in this topic.
Didn’t she have it until now?
I don’t want to say that, but for me the topic of informatization is as important as the topic of European funds.
What is the biggest problem of state IT?
For me as a citizen, it is also a certain friendliness of the services provided by the state in the field of digitization, whether it is Slovensko.sk or Slovakia on mobile. It is important that the officials also think about the comfort of the citizen and how the services will make his life easier, and that they are also practical to use. And we have to work on that. However, there are several areas that surprised me as a minister. The first is poor communication across departments in the area of computerization. Since informatization is a horizontal topic and concerns several departments, it is important that they actively and regularly communicate with each other.
Are you facing the problem of resortism? Are the Ministry of the Interior, but also the Ministry of Finance in the field of IT, still such a separate world?
Yes, the Ministry of the Interior is a specific player in the field of informatization. However, intensive preparations are already underway for our rules as the Ministry of Informatization to be accepted by the Ministry of the Interior.
What else surprised you?
There was a lack of vision for the area of computerization. Although strategic documents are important, they are not enough to fulfill the goal of providing citizens with user-friendly and reliable digital services. Planning is important, but you need to focus more on the result. We have defined the indicators on the basis of which we will monitor the specific results of the official government. But my successor can also take them over and continue managing the resort based on key indicators.
Didn’t the Ministry prepare them earlier?
I do not know
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