Digital House of Straw: The State Learns Little from its Mistakes

There's a phrase that perfectly sums up the current state of digital transformation in Public Administration: " You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. " And, unfortunately, we continue to nurture an ecosystem that confuses price with value, urgency with strategy, and technology with modernization. The result? More of the same: repeated failures, predicted chaos, and a succession of projects that are born with great fanfare and die in silence, leaving millions of euros and the trust of citizens behind.

The recent collapse of the administrative courts' computer system is just the latest episode in a long saga. The script is familiar: a new system is launched with great political enthusiasm, official communication promises efficiency and transparency, and within days what was a "digital revolution" transforms into a scene of paralysis. Judges without access to files, lawyers in waiting lines, courts suspended, and an entire country watching, incredulous, the déjà vu of inefficiency. Little is learned from mistakes, and so history repeats itself, only with new characters.

The root of the problem lies in how the State purchases technology and lacks a clear Information Systems strategy. Public tenders, driven almost exclusively by price criteria, create an ecosystem that levels down. Out of convenience and fear of qualitative evaluations, discussions about team competence, architecture robustness, or solution maturity are avoided. The result is predictable: projects awarded to the cheapest bidder, with understaffed teams and fragile products that collapse at the first real-world test. Digital transformation is not achieved through penny-pinching auctions, but through strategy, leadership, rigor, and vision.

And when it seems things can't get any worse, we accelerate the migration to the public cloud with almost religious enthusiasm, forgetting that digital sovereignty is not just a pretty word. Placing critical state systems on foreign platforms without a solid governance model is irresponsible. When a US-based global provider sneezes, as happened recently, affecting several essential state services like the NHS and NHS24, the entire country catches a technological pneumonia. It's not just a technical issue, it's also a matter of national sovereignty.

It is therefore urgent to create effective Data Governance and Architecture rules, not merely decorative documents. We need to rationalize development models, define digital maturity, and evaluate the strategic impact of technological decisions. Otherwise, we will continue to build "digital straw houses" that are beautiful on the outside, fragile on the inside, and that crumble like a deck of cards at the slightest breath.

A new figure now enters this equation: the State CTO. But the mission will not be easy. It is necessary to "strengthen" the digital strategy, align teams, define priorities, and identify quick wins that generate trust. And all this on a train already in motion—and getting faster and faster. The choice is simple: either the new CTO, a person I greatly admire for their professionalism, takes command with assertiveness and vision, or the country will continue to drift aimlessly, between announcements of innovation and recurring disasters.

Portugal doesn't need more digital plans or slogans about "modernization." It needs discipline, leadership, and the courage to say no to flimsy solutions and yes to quality and value. Because, in the end, it's of little use to repaint the walls if the house stubbornly remains made of straw.