Guiding Ministries to a networked future [1]
Saturday, June 30, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Friday, January 29, 2016 - 17:25.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 1, June 2001.
Tonga has yet to form an official committee to take care of its National Information Technology policy, a responsibility that will probably go to the newly formed Department of Communications.
Meanwhile, unofficially, the existing Government Computer Committee that was established to deal with the threat of a possible Y2K problems before the end of the 20th century has been playing the role of a National Computer Committee.
Siaosi Sovaleni, the Director of Information Systems for the Ministry of Finance, and a member of the Government Computer Committee, said that the committee was set up primarily to prepare Tonga for any Y2K problem, but since then their work has focused on government’s computer needs.
Siaosi said that the two areas they had been working on were to standardise the computers that government ministries are buying and to prepare guidelines for the type of hardware and software that they should buy. The committee will need to give their approval on whatever computer hardware and software government ministries would like to buy.
Looking at the possibilities of government ministries being computerised and networked with each other. Siaosi said that it is possible with whatever system that it is introduced, whether it is through TCC or Tonfön. “For the ministries to be able to network with each other will definitely be a lot cheaper than sending e-mail to each other via TCC.” But Siaosi said that a lot of work has to be done first. “Each ministry has to be able to network within itself first before they can network with each other.”
Siaosi said that all government ministries were in various stages of computerisation but he believed that the Ministry of Finance had the most advanced system, “because all government payrolls, the government estimated Budget and government loans have been programmed through computers.”
Financing
Siaosi admitted that one sticky issue with regards to the computerising of government ministries was the financing, but when the time comes he said they were ready because they had already prepared the specifications and the guidelines of what to get.
The Government Computer Committee is chaired by the Minister of Education, Hon. Dr Tutoatasi Fakafanua and the members are Siaosi Sovaleni and Saia Vaipuna from the Ministry of Finance, Paula Ma‘u from the Prime Minister’s Office, Major Va‘inga Tone from the Tonga Defence Services, Havili Movete from the Tonga Development Bank, Robert Bolouri from the Tonga Chamber of Commerce and Master Tuiono from the Ministry of Education.