MBABANE – Nine government ministries are operating without any regular data backup systems, exposing critical state information to possible permanent loss in the event of cyberattacks, hardware failure or system breakdowns, a newly released Digital Landscape Assessment Report has revealed.
The findings are contained in the Digital Landscape Assessment Report that will guide the formulation of Eswatini’s new national e-Government Strategy.
The Ministry of ICT officially received and endorsed the report during a breakfast meeting held at Mountain View Hotel on Thursday, where findings from the nationwide assessment were presented to representatives from 21 government ministries.
According to the report, backup practices across government ministries remain inconsistent and in some cases entirely absent.
Out of the 21 ministries assessed, only seven conduct daily backups, three perform weekly backups, while another three conduct monthly backups. However, nine ministries reported having no regular backup practices at all.
The ministries identified as having no backup systems include the Ministry of Tinkhundla Administration and Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy.
The report warns that the absence of backup systems places critical government information at risk, including data linked to water resources, mining, energy, social grants and other essential public services.
“This exposes a substantial portion of the government’s digital estate to unrecoverable data loss in the event of system failure, cyberattack, or hardware degradation,” the report states.
The assessment further found that maintenance and support arrangements across ministries remain weak and uneven. Eleven ministries reportedly operate without formal maintenance contracts for their ICT systems.
Where support arrangements do exist, the report notes that ministries depend heavily on the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) for hosting, maintenance and system development services.
The report cautions that the near-universal reliance on RSTP creates what it describes as a “structural concentration risk” because ministries lack internal ICT capacity to manage or troubleshoot systems independently if RSTP services are delayed or disrupted.
“Where RSTP capacity is limited, delayed, or disrupted, individual ministries have no internal fallback to maintain operational continuity,” the report observed.
Among the most concerning findings was the condition of the Ministry of Finance’s IBM mainframe infrastructure. The report states that several systems are operating on software that has reached end-of-life and is no longer supported by vendors.
This means there may be no formal technical support available should critical system failures occur.
The assessment identified integration and interoperability between ministries as another major weakness in government’s digital infrastructure.
More than half of all assessed ministries reportedly lack meaningful interoperability or central data repository connectivity, making information sharing and coordinated digital service delivery difficult.
The report also highlighted severe internet and connectivity problems across government institutions. Fifteen out of the 22 ministries assessed reportedly operate with internet bandwidth of one megabit per second or less.
Unstable SWAZI-NET connectivity, incomplete local area network coverage and weak cybersecurity measures were also identified as major obstacles to effective digital transformation.
The report found that only 31 out of 419 government services are currently available online, meaning the majority of citizen services remain paper-based and manual.
Services such as grants, permits, visa applications, labour inspections and court-related services still largely require physical processes despite previous digitalisation efforts.
A shortage of ICT professionals within government was also identified as a major concern.
According to the report, only 18 dedicated ICT professionals support the entire government digital estate assessed under the study. Fifteen ministries reportedly have no in-house ICT officers and depend entirely or substantially on RSTP for technical functions.
The assessment further found that 20 out of 22 ministries operate without formally approved ICT strategies aligned to the national e-Government framework.
The report recommends that the new e-Government Strategy establish mandatory operational resilience standards across government, including compulsory backup systems, formal maintenance arrangements and annual ICT health assessments coordinated by the Ministry of ICT.
It also calls for the creation of dedicated ICT officer positions within ministries to reduce dependence on external support providers and improve institutional capacity.
The Ministry of Health was identified as one of the strongest-performing ministries in terms of digital integration and interoperability. Its Health Information Exchange system, based on HL7/FHIR integration standards, was described as the most technically advanced architecture observed during the assessment.
In its conclusion, the report states that Eswatini’s digital transformation efforts cannot succeed through systems investment alone, but will require parallel improvements in governance, connectivity, staffing and cybersecurity.
“The new national e-Government Strategy must start from what is real,” the report states.
“It must start from the baseline established in this report, honest about the gaps, clear about the prerequisites, and realistic about the pace at which systemic change can be achieved.”
The report is expected to serve as the foundation for the country’s next e-Government Strategy as government seeks to modernise public service delivery and strengthen digital governance nationwide.
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