Digitise Governance for Transparency, Cost Reduction –Minister

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ibrahim Pantami, on Tuesday called on government at all levels to digitise governance processes to reduce cost, enhance efficiency and entrench transparency.

The Minister made the call at the end of a four-day 8th Regular Meeting of the National Council on Communications and Digital Economy (NCCDE) held in collaboration with Imo Government in Owerri.

Our correspondent reports that the minister was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Mr Musa Istifanus.

Patanmi said that the IPPIS was initiated by the Federal Government to reduce the cost of printing payment vouchers, slips and other documents associated with payment of its numerious work force.

He said that the decision reached at the 8th NCCDE meeting would create great impact on Nigerians in the penetration into broadband for e-learning across the nation.

The minister advised Nigerians to embrace Information Communication Technology (ICT) for effective communication and transmission of ideas.

Earlier, Istifanus had said that the Federal Government, through the ministry, had developed policies and master plan, including Broadband (2020-2025) targeted at covering 90 per cent of Nigerians, irrespective of their locations.

Speaking on the theme “Leveraging Digital Economy Policies and Strategies for Economic Recovery in a COVID-19 Era and Beyond”, he said that with ICT, people could communicate effectively with one another and do their buying and selling online.

Istifanus said that ICT had helped to break the barrier of close contact and overcome the hurdle of COVID-19 pandemic.

Sen. Yakubu Oseni, the Chairman, Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime, said ICT was Pivotal to the transformation of economies and had accelerated the pace of globalisation and completely impacted on life and work in the society.

Represented by Mr Ayoh Ogon, the Clerk to the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime, Oseni said ICT had made the world a much safer place as the major vehicle for security surveillance and investigation.

He said that ICT had also become the key infrastructure in security and intelligence, education, banking, agriculture, health services, manufacturing, aviation, power generation, marine services, building technology and immigration services, aside others.

Oseni expressed regret that criminal elements around the world had turned the ICT revolution into a nightmare with sophisticated and severity attacks.

Oseni said that the yearly meetings of the national council, the highest advisory body to the government on policies, programmes and strategies on digital technology, had helped, in no small way, in the attainment of numerous objectives of the country in the area of technology.

He said the senate committee had been engaging in activities aimed at addressing the challenges of cybercrime.

Mr Ikechukwu Umeh, the Imo Commissioner for Science and Technology, said the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy was created to facilitate ICT in the transformation agenda of Nigeria in the areas of job creation, economic growth and transparency in governance.

He said It was also to solve the problems of the various aspects of the economy notably education, health, taxation, commerce and industry, agriculture, tourism, transportation, banking, infrastructure development and skills acquisition.

Umeh described communication as key to technological advancement of any developed or developing economy.

He said the state ministry of science and technology had the mandate of developing ICT infrastructure, formulating state ICT policy, automation and re-engineering of government processes and businesses.

“It has, therefore, become imperative that technology must be embraced to enable a digital state that is more efficient, effective, accessible, secure and transparent that meets and serves the needs of individuals, businesses and institutions in the country.

“We firmly believe that ICT is the enabler for e-governance at both state and federal levels to catalyse economic recovry, revenue generation, job creation, security survelliance and service delivery,” he said.

Our correspondent reports that the participants, drawn from across the states of the federation, commended the organisers for convening the event meant to update ICT stakeholders.

They said they had received more information on ICT in the country.

A participant, Mr Sani Mohammed with the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Niger State, said they had been updated with ICT innovations from different states in the country.

He said one of the innovations was the upgrade from commercial domain name .com to top level domain .gov.ng for organisations and agencies.

“We are in the digital world, but the youth need encouragement from government in terms of capacity building and sponsorship. We commend the Federal and State Governments for the efforts put in place for this programme,” he said.

Mrs Amaka Eboh, an entrepreneur from Imo, urged youths and women to embrace information technology for a better tomorrow instead of waiting for white colour jobs.

…CCA