20,000 civil servants for e-government training in S/Korea
The South Korean Government would spend the sum of $10 million to train Nigerian civil servants on e-government to enhance governance in the country.
The Minister of Communication Technology Omobola Johnson disclosed this in Abuja during the workshop on Master Plan for e-government in Nigeria organised by the ministry in collaboration with Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and Sangmyung University, South Korea.
Represented by the Director of e-government in the ministry, Dr Tope Fashedemi, the minister said the $10m aid for the e-government training was part of the bilateral cooperation between Nigeria and Korean.
She said government was desirous at making all government ministries, agencies and departments key into e-government to enhance governance in the country.
Countries across the globe are adopting e-government to deliver services to their citizens and Nigeria should not be an exception, the minister said. She said Nigeria has consistently been ranked at the bottom of United Nations’ e-government index, adding that this could scare away potential investors from the country.
On the other hand, she said, the South Korea has consistently been ranked as number one in the last few years.
“This is why Nigeria decided to learn from the Korean experience to build capacity in e-government drive to transform the way we deliver services to our citizen by leveraging e-government”, she said.
According to her, the first phase of the project is to develop an e-government Master Plan for Nigeria, adding that should be followed by the establishment of the e-government training centre at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria, situated in Abuja.
In his address, KOICA’s Country Representative, Sang-Hoon Jung, said 20,000 Nigerian civil servants would be trained in Korea on the nittygritty of e-government.
Jung said it is only technology that could bring the desired change in Nigeria, adding that KOICA would ensure that Nigeria’s ranking on UN e-government index improves.