‘E-governance has transformed administration’

The federal government has said the adoption of e-governance strategies will ease service delivery to citizens.

Head of Civil Service of the Federation Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji stated this at the just concluded Africa Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development High-Level seminar on strategies for the use of e-Governance and e-Administration in Africa in Morocco on Tuesday.

Goni Aji who was represented at the seminar by the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology Dr. Tunji Olaopa said the realization of savings which could be made if such infrastructure are shared by various MDAs led to the creation of Galaxy Backbone Ltd.

“The realization of the transformative power of ICT has led Nigeria to adopt e-Governance as a part of government policy. This is gradually resulting in government delivering better services to its publics in a more efficient, cost-effective and transparent manner,” he said.

He said the federal government currently spends close to $1bn on ICT infrastructure and services per annum. However, this spend is in functional or ministerial silos and largely skewed towards hardware purchases and ICT infrastructure.

He added that “the introduction of the ‘1-Gov.net project by Galaxy Backbone is to ensure that infrastructure and transversal applications are shared across MDAs, resulting in huge savings.

He stressed that, the approach to providing shared infrastructure received validation from the highest level in 2013, with Galaxy Backbone winning the United Nation’s Public Service award for the promotion of whole-ofgovernment approaches in the Information Age.