- ICTA refuses to give cause
“If we embrace digitalisation and make it a practical reality, we can progress alongside developed nations. If not, we will be pushed further down,” President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said in September, emphasising this Government’s intentions of a digitised Sri Lanka.
However, less than a month later, a host of key Government websites and portals abruptly went offline, leaving thousands stranded unable to obtain critical e-services.
The disruption had occurred over a week ago and by Monday (13) the impact on the public was clear to see, with people queuing up at various Government departments such as the Registrar General’s Department and the Department of Motor Traffic.
The Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) issued a statement identifying the Government services and websites that weren’t operational, which included the Birth, Marriage, and Death (BMD) Certificate System of the Registrar General’s Department, the e-Revenue License System (eRL 2.0) used by Provincial Departments of Motor Traffic (excluding the Western Province), the Police Clearance System of the Department of Police, and the Country of Origin Certificate Issuance System of the Department of Commerce.
In addition, several Government websites – such as those of the Department of Meteorology, Department of the Registrar of Companies, and the Sri Lanka Accounting and Auditing Standards Monitoring Board – were also impacted.
Ironically, the ICTA website, too, was down at the time of going to press.
Transition troubles
ICTA Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chanuka Wattegama said the disruption was partially due to the transition to a new cloud server.
“I cannot go into detail about what went wrong. There is a service interruption that occurred when we were transitioning from one server to another, that is all that I can say. We know what happened, but our first priority is to attend to the interruption,” he said.
He added that ICTA was doing its best to get the system and the services up and that its engineers were working with the engineers of the service provider at the site to get the services operational as soon as possible. “However, I cannot say exactly when that will be,” he admitted.
Wattegama further explained that the hope was that once all Government services were migrated to the new server, LGC 2+, disruptions would not recur.
“We are moving to LGC 2+, the next phase of the Lanka Government Cloud (LGC), which is more spacious, more reliable, and has better features. We are in the process of moving some of the Government cloud services to the LGC 2+ environment. The hope is to move all the Government servers to this platform.
“The current server is called LGC 2.0 but the LGC 2+ is technically superior. This move was planned a long time back because there had been some space issues in the system,” he said, adding that apart from the Police Clearance System, all other affected services and websites were yet to become operational.
ICTA’s refusal to divulge the exact cause of the systemwide disruption raises concerns as to whether it is an issue of incompetence within the authority and/or whether something grave has occurred and is being kept hidden from public scrutiny.
Social impact
Media analyst Nalaka Gunawardene pointed out the social impact of crucial Government services going offline without forewarning and backup systems to stave off extended disruptions.
“ICTA says the LGC crash was due to internal technical issues and the State cybersecurity body – the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT) – has said there was no external cyberattack. We, the public, have only their word for this and no way of verifying it.
“ICTA in a press release has reassured that ‘data integrity remains fully intact and critical systems are fully secure,’ but these technicalities totally miss the biggest and lasting damage, which is the loss of public trust and confidence in digital Government services.
“To be fair, system modernisation and upgrades can interrupt regular services but when critical systems are being upgraded, there are industrial safeguards to ensure no system-wide failure occurs, and certainly not for multiple working days. Why didn’t ICTA take such precautions?”
Likening digitisation of Government services to other essential services such as healthcare, Gunawardene urged the Government to be more proactive in its undertaking.
“Is ICTA serious about the LGC becoming a mission-critical service? To use an analogy, would the airport and aviation authorities take any chances with the mission-critical air traffic control services and allow a system breakdown in the middle of any upgrade? If not, why treat the LGC as any less critical? The LGC is increasingly where the Government delivers its citizen services and encourages more citizens to engage on. Digital services should be treated on par with air traffic control or an ICU in the healthcare sector.”
Governance lapses
Meanwhile, cybersecurity expert Asela Waidyalankara highlighted the governance lapses in the LGC.
He clarified that the problem was not a cyberattack but rather a technical management and governance failure. “A large number of critical e-governance systems are currently affected. While digitisation efforts are commendable and fully supported, this incident reveals serious vulnerabilities in how technology governance is handled,” he said.
Waidyalankara stressed that the growing integration of digital identity initiatives like the Sri Lanka Unique Digital Identity (SLUDI) project and Electronic National Identity Card (ENIC) project made it imperative for stakeholders to reassess governance frameworks. “Without robust governance, the gap in system reliability and citizen trust will only widen,” he warned.
The expert pointed out that entities such as the LGC lacked mandatory certifications that ensured strict oversight. “Look at the banking sector, which is mandated by the Central Bank to maintain ISO 27001 certification and undergo independent audits. Such rigorous standards are missing for Government cloud services, which is a significant lapse,” he explained.
Waidyalankara called for transparent monitoring processes, including alert systems, dashboards, and 24/7 network operations oversight by either internal teams or vendors under clear service-level agreements. “Questions like when the issue was identified, whether monitoring tools exist, and how key performance indicators are managed need urgent answers.”
He concluded that addressing these governance issues was essential to safeguard the future of e-governance in Sri Lanka and to maintain public confidence in increasingly digital public services.
“This is about the governance framework. This is why entities like the LGC need to be under some sort of certification.”
Ministry optimistic
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Digital Economy was optimistic that this issue would not reoccur or be highly limited in the event it did.
“We are looking at a long-lasting solution at this stage. We want to rescue as much as possible and operationalise in an uninterrupted manner,” Ministry of Digital Economy Acting Secretary Waruna Sri Dhanapala told The Sunday Morning.
He pointed to a lack of expertise among the various Government departments as the cause of the delay in getting the servers operational once more.
“More than eight Government departments have been affected along with their websites, so all of that has to be looked at. In addition, another issue for the delay is that there aren’t many technical experts within the individual Government departments that have been affected, so the recovery process is slow-going as they have to work hand in hand with ICTA,” he said.
Dhanapala asserted that once two new bodies – GovTech Ltd. and the Digital Economy Authority – were established, governance matters pertaining to digitisation would be better handled.
“There won’t be a permanent CEO appointed to ICTA as the authority will be replaced by GovTech, which has been established and already incorporated. We believe such incidents will not occur once GovTech and the Digital Economic Authority become operational,” he stated.