Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Omotayo Alasoadura, has joined other stakeholders in the quest to strengthen e-Governance to enhance productivity in the country.
This was the crux of a two-day Public Sector Productivity and Innovation summit on driving national productivity and efficiency through e-Governance strategies, organised by the National Productivity Centre in collaboration with Leadership and Professional Ethics Consult, which commenced in Abuja on Tuesday.
The minister noted that the summit theme, which is “leveraging e-Government as a Vehicle for Increasing Productivity and Improving Public service Delivery” will strengthen the progress made in the public sector in providing essential and social services to meet the demands and expectations of the citizens while using electronic and digital tools and processes.
“Therefore, the productivity and efficiency need of the public sector cannot be over-emphasized. The essence of is to highlight how these enabling technologies are transforming government productivity and creating the market for new skills, knowledge and jobs in a complementary way through, which government institutions have been able to do more with less while delivering greater output with desirable speed and precision,” he said.
He pointed out that Information and communications technology has created greater room for information sharing, public orientation, and engagement. He noted that it has made public service delivery far more effective and efficient and thereby pumping out remarkable public sector productivity.
“Powerful software, applications, digital tools, smart connections, and next-generation algorithms are now complementing what we used to have to bring greater output to the laps of users. While most of these developments are focused on the private sector the public sector should not be left behind. “It is therefore imperative for the public sector to be proactive in developing, exploring, adopting and deploying emerging technologies that meets today’s needs and anticipates the future,” he said.
He commended the Ministry of Communications, Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Galaxy backbone and the private sector concerns for their enormous efforts in developing e-government. He charged stakeholders to deepen analysis of key issues around e-governance to provide more concrete policy recommendations and actionable strategies for good governance in the country.
Director General National Productivity Centre, Kashim Ako, while making his remarks said the summit seeks to highlight the nexus between e-government and productivity in Nigeria adding that the centre executes its mandate by stimulating consciousness monitoring productivity trends, research into productivity problems and proffering solution as well as build skills and capacities of personnel, processes and systems of organizations to enhance productivity.
“Through several initiatives, programmes and interventions we seek top helps players in both public and private sector achieve more in such a way that will result in sustainable output and growth,” he said.
He noted that economic productivity is precarious when not well sequenced and led by innovation. He added that at a time when the whole world is heading towards fourth industrial revolution, an era where the nature of work, living and business transactions are being driven by inventive technologies, Nigeria cannot afford to be left out.
Contributing, the managing director/CEO of Galaxy backbone, Yusuf Kazaure, said his organisation interfaces with different agencies to create enabling infrastructure to provide security standard for digital information to help both the public and private sectors thrive in e-governance.
