The Federal Government expects to “reduce corruption to the barest minimum” with the launch of the Nigeria e-Government Master Plan 2020.
The ‘Nigeria e-Government Master Plan 2020’ developed by the Ministry of Communications and envisoned to improve service delivery in the Nigerian Pubic Service was launched last week in Abuja.
Dr Adebayo Shittu, Minister of Communications, says that e-Government implementation is an essential policy that helps improve efficiency in the public service, block financial leakages, ensure transparency in government dealings, “which would reduce corruption to the barest minimum and bring the Government closer to the people.”
The Minister says the Master plan which is the brain child of the Federal Ministry of Communications and aims to achieve the Federal Government’s vision and objective of Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP), for a virile economy.
The launching of the e-Government Master Plan was performed by Mr. Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who doubles as the Chairman, Presidential Council on e-Government, in collaboration with the Minister of Communications.
The Communications Minister says the e-government policy implementation would improve quality of life of citizens by enhancing national competitiveness, facilitating market economy, promoting participatory democracy, and improving transparency in the public sector.
According to him, the initiative that hopes to make best use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) was developed through research, collaboration and extensive engagement with other relevant stakeholders with the support of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
Shittu says e-Government Master Plan also recognises the need to leverage Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) to build a knowledge-based economy.
He says that the Communications Ministry developed the master plan in fulfilment of its mandate to “Utilize ICT to drive transparency in governance and improve the quality and cost effectiveness of public service delivery in Nigeria.”
On his part, Mr. Musa Istifanus, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications, says that the Ministry took on the responsibility of leading the development of e-government framework in fulfillment of its mandate in line with several programmes assigned to the Ministry in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government.
The 11-month long process that led to the development of the initial draft of the e-government Master Plan championed by the Ministry of Communications and her agencies especially National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Galaxy Backbone Ltd (GBB) was to develop an e-government master plan that will function in various aspects of governance, the Permanent Secretary says.
“Our expected goal is to have a transparent, competent and services-oriented Government based on the virtues of openness; sharing; communication and collaboration with the vision to develop “World Class Open Government” based on transparency, efficiency and quality of service”, Istifanus adds.
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