Nigeria’s bureaucracy to be fully paperless by 2030
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Federal bureaucracy in Abuja HQ and in other branches countrywide are already going digital and expected to be fully paperless by 2030 to cut the cost of governance and ensure greater efficiency.
Communications and Digital Economy Minister Isa Pantami disclosed this at the Service Wide Capacity Building Programme on e-Government at the e-Government Training Centre (e-GTC) in Abuja.
“By 2030, we hope to achieve a paperless government that will be driven by Blockchain technology and that can be used to achieve a lot,” he said.
The training, held in eight batches, was facilitated by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) with support from the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (OHCSF).
A total 1,376 public servants were trained between November 2020 and December 2021 at the centre located in the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN) in Abuja, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reported by The Nation.
Those trained are to drive the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) to achieve change and leverage technology for a vibrant digital economy.
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Implementation of IT in MDAs
Pantami disclosed that implementation of Information Technology (IT) in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) saved N9 billion for the government in 2019 and N152 billion 2020.
“The [e-GTC] committee should ensure that the training is extended to state governments and chief executives of organisations for a comprehensive e-Government system and educate them on the benefits of digitalisation of government processes.
“We also need a database of these trainings for reference sake to raise the country’s ranking at the international community,” he stressed.
Folasade Yemi-Essan, Head of Civil Service of the Federation, said the OHCSF is working with the NITDA to create a digital platform for easy service delivery.
She urged government agencies to collaborate better for a sustainable digital economy without which the nation cannot move forward.
Buhari’s directive
NITDA Director General Kashifu Inuwa, who also chairs the e-GTC committee, emphasised the need to build human capacity to drive digital transformation.
He said the programme is part of the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari during the official unveiling of the NDEPS on November 28, 2019.
NDEPS is to use e-GTC to provide the capacity building component of e-Government Masterplan implementation in MDAs.
A 10-man governing committee to oversee the affairs of the e-government training centre was instituted in November 2019.
“The committee engaged 16 Korean-trained public servants as resource persons to train the trainers, even though the proper training did not start until November 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The centre has trained 1,376 civil servants from 48 MDAs between November 2020 and December 2021,” Inuwa said.
“The centre adopted the government cost-saving strategy of hosting events organised by partner-MDAs and has hosted 50 events spanning 184 days for interested MDAs in 2020 and 2021.’’
Services provided by NITDA include security, expanded training centre, desktops, internet, among other facilities, he added.
“The benefits of the training carried out by the e-GTC include recognising the opportunities e-government can bring, identify and prioritise where technology can be best applied to drive efficiencies, enable change and improve service delivery.”