The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr. Isa Ali Pantami on Thursday said the Federal Government saves N24.7bn monthly, through the deployment of Information technology (IT).
He disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja at the March 2019 Lunch Time Reform Seminar organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) with the theme: “The Need for Active Engagement of Public Institutions in the Implementation of IT Regulatory Instruments in Nigeria”.
According to him, under the e-Governance, many leakages in government institutions have been blocked by IT deployment and that has integrated even the revenue of the country
“With the implementation of Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and BVN, the Federal Government of Nigeria has been saving a minimum of N24.7billion monthly, just because of the implementation of this IT software.
“In addition, look at the confidence of our citizens today it has improved significantly in Nigeria, because many people today have trust in online banking,” Pantami said.
While saying that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had automated its system, to enable companies get registered online without going to the organisation’s office, he said IT had also enabled Nigerians to obtain International Passports, and book appointment for biometrics online.
He said, “Furthermore, IT had enabled Nigerians to run online courses without physically attending institutions.”
He said low internet connectivity, lack of digital skills, low integration of business technology with IT and non-digitalization of some public institutions results into huge loss of government revenue.
He warned that public institution defaulters of IT clearance certificate from NITDA would be punished through the agency’s laws and with directives from the Presidency.
He therefore urged all public institutions to create IT action plans, retain good IT staff while attracting more world class IT experts especially the indigent ones in foreign countries.
Speaking earlier, the Acting DG of the BPSR, Mr. Dasuki Ibrahim Arabi, said the bureau, collaborating with NITDA, Galaxy Backbone and other government agencies developed a scorecard for ranking of MDAs websites, which now serves as a peer review mechanism among the MDAs to boost compliance to standard for government websites.
