The success of the electronic government project the Nigerian government has embarked upon depends on building bridges between participants in the private and the public sectors says heads of the Ministry Department and Agencies at a recent summit.
The e-Government Master Plan was launched in May 2019 to achieve the federal government’s vision and objective of the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP), for a virile economy.
At an e-Government Summit in Lagos recently, heads of agencies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and other stakeholders stated that there is a need for more engagements between the government and technology service providers, in order to enhance the delivery of e-Government services to the citizens.
Lanre Ajayi, executive chairman, DigiServe the organizer of the summit said the engagement became imperative because technology service provides were not engaging enough and there were insufficient technology solutions capable of delivering the mandates of the e-Government project to Nigerians.
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“Citizens are not getting quality service from the government because technologies are not efficiently deployed in government service deliveries,” Ajayi said. “In order to bridge the gap, DigiServe decided to use its e-Government Summit platform to bring together the government and technology service providers to share experience on the way forward.”
Government agencies like the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said they have been engaging stakeholders to deepen penetration of broadband infrastructure and services that support the growth of e-Governance and other critical digital economy objectives throughout Nigeria.
“In this regard, we recently unveiled our Strategic Vision Plan (SVP 2021-2025) which enables us to more effectively align our efforts with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and global best practices,” Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC said in a statement read by his representative Adewale Adeleke, Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management.
Muhammad Mamman Nami, Executive Chairman of Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says technology must be implemented and used effectively for government to gain the benefits of ICT. This is why the main focus of national development is funding good governance and socio-economic development.
“It is resulting in the transformation of tax policies – newer tax laws because of the new ways of doing business, digital economy and tax authorities going digital by adopting digital tax administration,” Nami said.
