eGovernment: NITDA Begins Capacity Building for MDAs

In a bid to hasten the implementation of the National e-Government Masterplan and inculcate the use of Information Technology in carrying out government activities, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Wednesday commenced a two day virtual strategic capacity building workshop for Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Public Institutions (FPI).

The training is in three phases for Directors of ICT and Heads of Procurement, Network administrators and Domain Managers, while the third batch is for the NITDA team driving the digital transformation agenda.

The Director General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, who was represented by the Director  e-Government Development and Regulation Dr. Vincent Olatunji while delivering the opening remarks stated that the purpose of the training is to ensure that the application of technology in running government activities become part of public service especially during this post COVID-19 era.

Mallam Abdullahi hinted that in line with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy ( NDEPS) NITDA, has a strategic roadmap which it has been implementing. He said  one of the major pillars driving the policy is to develop quality human capital to drive government initiatives and government plans at the various MDAs.

He noted that in line with the National e-Government masterplan of the country, a strategy to have institutional framework was designed to implement the NDEPS.

It will be recalled that a DT-TWGS was setup earlier and 442 members from 89 MDAs  were trained.

The Director General also hinted that it is in a bid to spread the training to other critical stakeholders in the MDAs that necessitated the need for this strategic capacity building workshop. In order to exchange ideas and share knowledge on various strategic initiatives to put in place for the Nation to move forward under this new normal,  the post COVID-19 era.

Speaking further, the Director General said the training focuses basically on three major topics: e-government and National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, legal framework for e-government and thirdly managing government process reengineering.

One of the resource persons, Engr. Nasir Shinkafi of Backbone Connectivity Networks Nigeria LTD highlighted the major attributes of e-government as transparency, efficiency and quality service and this he said, will yield strategic outcomes such as a high performing government with high performance culture, responsible financial management and competent, committed non-corruptible officers.

Speaking on legal framework , Barr. Emmanuel Edet of  NITDA, explained that for e-Government, the subject matters requiring legal framework are organizational structure, recognition of electronic documents, authentication and e-signature, security and trust. Others are electronic information management, interoperability framework, privacy and personal data security and funding for e-government research.

The guest presenter Dr. Lawal Zakari emphasized the need to replace outdated and outmoded work process with effective and re-engineered government processes as a way forward.