The government has decided to provide official email addresses to all government officials, the Ministry of Digital Economy has said, NewsFirst reported.
Deputy Minister Eranga Weeraratne said the initiative will help connect the public service and allow faster communication between government institutions.
What the system is intended to do
Weeraratne said the official email system will make it easier to share documents and other essential data, and will support activities such as video conferencing.
He noted that many government officials currently use personal email addresses for official work, and said government-issued addresses will streamline data exchange and accelerate the government’s digitalisation programme.
Context
The announcement follows a series of recent moves to put state administration onto shared digital infrastructure. The Cabinet last week approved a digital infrastructure upgrade for the e-Court project that includes some 1,050 official email accounts across 350 courts, and the government has been moving local administrative services online.
The practice the Deputy Minister describes — officials conducting state business from personal accounts — has been a recurring concern in Sri Lankan public administration, both for record-keeping and for security. Official addresses place correspondence on government-controlled systems rather than on commercial consumer platforms.
Not reported
This report rests on a single verified source. No other verified newsroom had filed on the announcement at the time of writing.
NewsFirst does not say how many officials the rollout covers, what it will cost, when it begins or when it is expected to finish, or which agency will operate the system. Nor does it say what domain the addresses will use, whether existing ministry and departmental addresses will be absorbed into the scheme, or whether use of the official address will be mandatory for official business.
No filing says where the Deputy Minister made the statement, whether the decision was a Cabinet decision, or whether any security, archiving or right-to-information requirements will attach to the new accounts.
Source: NewsFirst.
