$150Bn Stolen Fund: Experts Urges e-Govt Adoption to End Trends

Few days after President Muhammadu Buhari decried that an estimated $150 billion had been stolen in the Nigerian government and stashed abroad in the last 10 years, experts have called for a holistic adoption of e-government strategies at all levels of government to minimize the trends.

This, experts at a two-day E-Government Summit 2015 held in Abuja during the week, said, ‎will help in curbing cases of financial frauds in government circles.

The conference, which ended yesterday and brought together experts from different sectors of the economy cutting across financial services, Information and Communication Technology, agriculture, among others, was organised by the E-Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN), in collaboration with the Financial Services Strategy (FSS) 2020 and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Dr. Willie Obiano, Anambra State Governor, while speaking at the special guest at the event, maintained that the adoption of e-government in Anambra, especially in the area of tax collection has raised the Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state from less than N1 billion to its current N1.1 billion monthly with the ultimate objective to increase the IGR target to N3 billion monthly.

“In Anambra, our aggressive pursuit of a vision and mission strategies through an efficient use of ICT has attracted an inflow of investment to the tune of N2.4 billion to Anambra State in the past one year.

“The whole idea is to use government machinery to channel private sector interest to the advantages of the citizens by making the environment conductive through efficient use of ICT to achieve this.”

Speaking at the forum, Deputy Governor, Operations at CBN, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, said the CBN’s introduction of electronic transaction policies was meant to ensure efficiency in financial transactions and curb financial corruption in the system.

He said while the federal government and its paratstatals have also embraced a number of ICT-related initiatives in recent past in their services, with resultant cost-saving and ability to plug the leakages in its financial dealings, “there is an urgent need to popularize wider and holistic embrace of e-government in its totality.”

He noted that with the passage of three major bills relating to electronic transactions in Nigeria by the sixth National Assembly, the road is now clear for e-payment landscape in the country to exhibit increased sanity.

Mr. Oluwatoyin Joko, head, Programme Office, FSS2020, explained that the collaboration with E-PPAN was considered critical as it allows FSS2020 Office to see how it can better re-organise the major markets of financial market, insurance, pension and mortgage and agriculture and the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) using e-government as strategy.

“Beyond restructuring all these sectors, we also know that cases of financial corruptions, as we have been told to have witnessed in the last 10 years by Mr President where about $150 billion was said to have been stolen and taken outside the country, would be minimised,” he said.

Also, Mr. Macaulay Atase, E-PPAN president, said the forum was organised to facilitate dialogues that result in the evaluation of how infusion of ICT into service delivery by the government at all levels can result in increased transparency, efficiency and accountability, especially in the area of financial management.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tunji Olaopa, permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, disclosed that the ministry has come up with a National E-Government Master Plan last year, which specify the strategies through which government at all levels can implement a uniform e-government strategy that guarantees improved efficiency, transparency, convenience and lower cost of accessing services.

He emphasised that e-government helps to strengthen public institutions, encourages delivery of civic responsibilities and accelerate the growth of the nation’s economy.

“Currently, we are awaiting the approval of the National Executive Committee (NEC), when constituted by the President for a full-blast implementation of the National E-Government Master Plan 2020.”

Also speaking, Mr. Frank Ugbodaga, group head, Customer Operations and Services at Galaxy Backbone, said that e-government relies on two basic principles of connectivity and government cloud which, he said, are driven by Galaxy Backbone.

Critical technical sessions were held during the two day conference with focus on designing and implementing e-payment platform for government revenue collection; entrenching e-government for vibrant mortgagee market for sustainable housing delivery on democratic dispensation and a session on consolidating the pension reform through innovation in technology.

Other areas explored during the second day of the conference, which ended yesterday, were e-government and financial inclusion; enhancing the capacity of SMEs for job creation through technology; managing the risk of e-commerce and e-governance foe the insurance sector and a session on the Nigerian agricultural payment initiative.