The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi (CCIE) is of the opinion that ‘’information technology is key to a meaningful reforms in the public service”.
This opinion was expressed when the Director General of Bureau of Public Service Reform (BPSR) Mallam Dasuki Ibrahim Arabi and his management team paid him a courtesy call yesterday at the Agency’s Corporate Headquarters, Abuja.
Mallam Abdullahi while appreciating the visit affirmed that the visit is really timely as reforms in digitization of government services is highly necessary especially with the advent of COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking further, he said being the official government body that develops and regulates information technology in Nigeria, the Agency has begun its reform with its revised vision, mission, core values and rebranding of logo as these are necessary tools needed in the realisation of the organisational mandate.
The NITDA Boss explained that NITDA is a service provider to all MDAs and Nigerian citizens and as such, must change existing mind set, embrace and own the reform.
He noted further the importance of building on the Agency’s mandate and vision as these will help in identifying the need of the people and the kind of training required especially, training in soft skills.
In addition to rebranding, according to the DG, NITDA had also embarked on HR reform by looking at the existing processes and deploying appropriate personnel with the right training and technology on soft skills.
The DG highlighted a number of initiatives that have been put in place to align with the new reform environment of conducting government processes. These are the development of Nigeria Government Enterprise Architecture (NGEA) to show government investment in IT and to guide agencies on how to implement investments, as well as building of 100 repository public institutions.
“The Digital transformation technical working groups (DT-TWGs) is yet another initiative of NITDA established to help MDAs to understand and align what they do in individual Agency with the government priorities and government direction in digital transformation in general,” he noted.
The working groups he further asserted, will help reduce duplication of infrastructures since all MDAs are working for one government. This he said will give the country direction in its budget and investment in general.
He added that, “Another initiative is government interoperability framework which will help different MDAs through standardisation to extend information on projects they are doing to others in a seamless manner and one that ensure efficient deployment of government resources and value for money.”
In his remark, the DG of Bureau of Public Service Reform noted that the agency was established to enhance service delivery and with a mission to facilitate the building of the public service into a highly professional, functional, smart, and focused and results oriented institution.
He asserted that the agency also has the task of coordinating and ensuring full implementation of reform initiatives of other agencies of government, hence the importance of the visit is to acquaint the Bureau of the strides being made by NITDA to ensure reform of its processes.
He stated further thta the visit was also embarked upon to solicit cooperation of NITDA on how it can deploy its IT competences in reforming the entire public service.
