Pantami Lauches NGEA to Boost Govt ICT Investment
The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, has stated that without appropriate digital governance it is difficult to implement digital policies and meet strategic goals that will drive digital economy.
He stated this when he virtually inaugurated the Digital Transformation Technical Working Group DT-TWG phase one and officially launched Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture portal NGEA in Abuja.
The Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture portal — https://www.ngea.gov.ng/ is aimed at organising enterprise resources in order to provide capabilities that enable achieving expected values from every ICT investment.
Dr. Pantami said it is with the right digital governance practice that its implementation can be made easy.
“Without appropriate digital governance, it becomes difficult for digital investments and implementation to meet strategic objectives and expectations”, he said.
The Minister said “in today’s digital economy era, governments must treat digital as an integral part of governance in order to succeed and compete globally. The digital economy is developing at a remarkable rate and it has been widely accepted as the single most important driver of innovation, competitiveness and growth. It is now the highest driver of innovation and transformation in the public sector. The digital economy is fundamentally transforming the way the public sector operates and delivers services to customers to sustain our economy and compete globally”.
“Digital governance is key to managing digital transformation successfully. The failure of IT projects is also being experienced by a number of Federal Public Institutions (FPIs). This is largely due to the lack of an appropriate digital governance structure either at the individual organization level or government-wide.”
“On developmental Regulation, DT-TWG will be required to ensure all ICT and digital technologies related polices and regulations are adhered to by their organizations in a manner that enables national development”, he added.
Also speaking at the event, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said digital technologies must be scalable in the digital era.
“In the digital economy era, Governments must envisage how digital technologies and processes can be translated into a scalable architecture prepared for short, medium and long term strategies. This is to reduce the complexity associated with digital transformation and accelerate the achievement of expected values from the deployment of IT systems, digital technologies and innovations”, he said.
He listed the seven layers of the Nigerian Governance Enterprise Architecture NGEA and their relevance.
“Business, Service, Data, Application, IT Infrastructure, Security and Performance are centred on people and processes. Each layer has high-level expectations for FPIs and as well specifies best practices, standards, tools, reference models and recommendations that will help achieve the value propositions and citizens’ expectations for government digital services.
“The composition of DT-TWG shall consist of at least five members cutting across strategic departments with two persons from the IT/ICT/e-Government department and three other persons from core business departments. The Group shall be chaired by the Director/Head of ICT/IT/e-Government. Where there is no such designation, then the Chief Executives are at the liberty to choose the leader of the Group”, Abdullahi said.
He also disclosed that after the inauguration of the chairmen of the group by the Honorable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, it is their responsibilities to immediately constitute their organisations’ DT-TWGs as directed by the President
“We would embark on a massive training and capacity building for the DT-TWG members by September 21, 2020, at this centre. The program is expected to empower about 500 members of DT-TWGs across the first set of Federal Public Institutions FPIs. The aim is to empower them to be able to discharge their responsibilities efficiently. It is going to be a customised training to aid them accelerate and lead their organisations’ digital transformation”, he added.
In his remarks, the Country Director Korea International Cooperation Agency KOICA in Nigeria, Mr. Woochan Chang, said Nigeria was lagging behind in e-governance as other African countries are far rated ahead of Nigeria. Mauritius is 63 in the ranking and Ghana is 101 while Nigeria is rated 141 out of 193 countries.
“However according to the recent publication by UN e-government survey for the year 2020, Nigeria ranks 141 out of 193 countries in the e-government index. Nigeria is behind Ghana which is ranking 101 while Mauritius is 63 which is the highest ranking in the Africa region which is a challenging statistics”, he said.
He used the opportunity to call on Nigeria to do more in the area of e-governance.
“I will take this opportunity to call for more action from government that will elevate Nigeria’s ranking on the UN e-government development index particularly to encourage that digital transformation technical group members are inaugurated today to be champions of digital transformation in their various institutions”, Chang said.
Mr Chang noted that it is not enough to have a national digital plan but that it should be wholly implemented.
“As we all know, the National e-government plan is not just a roadmap but it is the actual implementation roadmap that will lead to the digital transformation that Nigeria wants to achieve. It is remarkable to see that NITDA is championing the cause for the implementation of National e-governance master plan”, he said.
He reiterated Korean government’s support to continue to consolidate the partnership achieved so far and support Nigerian government mission for digital transformation.
Other highlights of the day was the presentation of assessment result of 100 Federal Public Institutes FPIs and presentation of awards to best FPIs on different categories. Among the recipients are: Nigerian Postal Service NIPOST; best performing Agency in Digital Services, Federal Inland Revenue Service FIRS; best performing Digital Economy Revenue Readiness and Nigeria Customs Service NCS; best Strategic Plan Institutions and five others.
