Government websites down after water leak

Efforts are underway to repair and assess the damage caused by a water leak from a tank adjacent to the servers that provide internet access for the entire government hub.

Government internet services have been down since Monday afternoon when water leaked into the server room at the Ministry of Finance.

Following the embarrassing incident, an inquiry was ordered into why the sensitive equipment was not moved to safer telecoms CyTA facilities following a cabinet decision in November.

The leak was discovered Monday, leading to a disconnection of all government websites as a precautionary measure.

Officials said no accurate estimation could be made for when government services will go back online.

Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy said every possible effort is being made to restore the government’s online services.

It said that the call centre had been restored and put into operation. But intensive actions are being taken to restore, as soon as possible, other online services that have been affected.

The deputy ministry said, “Unfortunately, the systems were placed at the Finance Ministry in a way that exposed them to a possible accident, even though the Council of Ministers decided in November 2022 to move the equipment to the CyTA facilities”.

It said an inquiry would be conducted to establish why the decision was not implemented and why no further measures were taken to protect the existing facilities.

The Deputy Ministry also apologized to the public for the inconvenience.