Nigeria’s quest to attain greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance through the deployment of Information Communications Technologies (ICT) is being threatened by massive deficiency in broadband connectivity, industry observers have said.
According to them, government’s focus is currently shifting towards making public services available online, but progression in the level of adoption and usage is being slowed down due to the absence of ubiquitous broadband services. About 153 million Nigerians, out of a population of 170 million, the bulk of whom are rural dwellers, have no access to real broadband connectivity. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says that current broadband penetration stands at 10 percent. This situation is however worrying, considering that four underwater cable systems which landed the country with the ability to deliver about 10 terabits of international bandwidth capacity have been virtually stranded on the shoreline.
These cables have been unable to deliver service to the hinterland due to the under-developed distribution networks, including national long distance fibre, metro fibre and lastmile connectivity, required to push services in-land.
Titilola Shogaolu, chief payment and value added services officer at Interswitch Limited, says that certain critical factors are severely limiting the growth and development of electronic payments and electronic goverment in Nigeria. “One key issue is the deficiency in broadband connectivity, which incidentally is a critical pre-requisite for the provision of e-governance services and their usage by the citizens”, Shogaolu told E-Payment Review. The Buhari-led administration is currently grapling with a revenue crisis, amplified by widespread corruption which is already dampening government finances. Nigeria has recorded a near 40 percent slide in oil prices in the past year, which is beginning to put a huge strain on its citizenry and their businesses.
Industry observers are however of the view that pervasive deployments of electronic payment systems in the public sector would enable governments at all levels collect dues in a cost-effective manner, thereby improving revenue collection, whilst plugging loopholes which have become breeding grounds for economic wastage, leakages and corruption.
Speaking on the impact of growing use of e-payment on the insitutional structures, Niyi Ajao, executive director, technology and operations at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), said e-governance has become the saving grace of governance regulation today. “Government in the past had struggled with the eradication of corruption, elimination of ghost workers syndrome, removal of leakages in revenue collection, effective information dissemination, etc”, Ajao noted. According to him, highly cost-effective e-governance tools now exist and they are being embraced by government agencies with impressive results.
For instance, the Federal Government’s directive in 2009 that all government payments must be paid by electronic means triggered substantial reduction in corruption amongst agencies responsible for payments to contractors, and civil servants.
Also, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) introduced by FG in 2007 enabled the government to significantly reduce the ghost worker problem and to make savings for the financing of other projects.
Experts have said that Buhari needs to ensure that all Ministeries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) comply with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) provisions.
TSA is a unified structure of government bank accounts that gives a consolidated view of government’s cash resources, based on the unity of cash and the unity of treasury. It is a centralised cash position of the treasury, where the revenues of all government MDAs are consolidated and all cash outflows are executed in a single account within the custody of the CBN.
Widespread adoption of e-goverment services will also allow for easier coordination between government departments and easy information sharing with the public, industry observers have said. Ajumobi Fashola, intervention manager, Lagos State on Growth and Employment in States (GEMS3), however pointed out that , “governments have not made the user experience with existing electronic services platforms sufficiently attractive to engender a significant increase in the willingness of the citizens to adopt them”.
Fashola observed a low level of awareness on the existence of e-government services. “People cannot adopt something they are not aware of. SMS should be sent to people alerting them to these services”, he said.
In 2014, Nigeria was ranked 141st position in the United Nations (UN) e-Government Development Ranking index. The Federal Government had set the target of a five-fold increase in broadband penetration, in line with the National Broadband Plan (NBP).
One purpose of this is to create the much needed environment for greater adoption and usage of e-governance and electronic payments across the entire country. In tackling the issue of corruption, Shogaolu said, “E-payments reduce leakages. Where paper and cash are involved, there are often huge leakages which are recurring pain for budgeting and auditing functions in governance”, said Shogaolu.
Speaking in the same vein, Ajao said e-government has great potentials for improving the lives of common people and alleviating poverty. “It creates a more nimble and more accessible government in the eyes of the public. Increased internally generated revenue, which is a major benefit of e-government, provides government with more funds to finance more people-oriented projects and social amenities for the common people”, he explained.
Ben Uzor
