ICT department needs upgrading, hacking plaguing government.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Finance Richard Gibson Sr announced on Wednesday that the CFT has dispatched a letter to the Kingdom Government informing them that St. Maarten has fully complied with the four point instruction that was issued in 2015. Minister Gibson said the letter states that St. Maarten already made provisions to compensate its past debt, all health and pension premiums are budgeted, resolve all back-payments and their delinquent accounts with creditors that were not paid and finally to make the health insurance financially viable. The latter the Minister said has not yet been completed because the government has to put some legislations in place which will take additional time.
Minister Gibson further explained that he is trying to see if St. Maarten can borrow monies in order to fix and upgrade the ICT system of government that has been hacked twice, once in November and just two days ago.
Gibson said that government set aside NAF6M to upgrade the tax system on St. Maarten but they have to give strong attention to the ICT system of government because it cannot be so at this day and age that government ICT system is not up to par and hackers can derail the system. He said the last time the system was hacked in November 2016, some security measures were put in place but that certainly did not solve the problem because just two days ago the system was hacked again but this time the hackers were not able to disable the entire system.
In the meantime, Prime Minister William Marlin said only on Wednesday morning he received a report on the hacking which took place in November and the one two days ago. He said he did not get a chance to read the report as he got it just moments before the press meeting started.
The Prime Minister also indicated that the Kingdom is aware of the problem and they are ready to assist St. Maarten if necessary with its ICT problems.
CFT sends letter to Kingdom to inform them that St. Maarten has complied with the 2015 instruction.
