HOS Tasks MDAs on ICT Deployment for Efficiency

Danladi Kifasi, head of the Federal Civil Service, has enjoined Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to key into the recently introduced Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in attaining a more efficient, effective and accessible service.

''In fact the introduction of the ICT tools into the service today is in tandem with my sincere desire to bequeath a civil service that is performance and result-oriented, customer-service focused, technology-driven, responsive to the public and service delivery conscious''.

Kifasi, who stated this in Abuja in his keynote address to the unveiling of FEDCS platform and the campaign for adoption and penetration of the Switch To (.gov.ng), explained that while most of these reforms were ongoing, the federal civil service was also being re-positioned to fully leverage on ICT as a tool for good governance and effective service delivery.

Ministry of Communication Technology had officially rolled out an e-mail system cutting across all ministries in a www.feds.gov.ng platform designed to break the challenges of mobility of staff from one ministry to the other and promote the government-wide messaging collaboration (GWMC) at the ceremony.

 According to Kifasi, ‘’we are expected to use ICT to further develop areas such as government to government interaction, government to citizen and government to business interactions in order to ensure efficiency and transparency in the conduct of government business with the public, however, the government to employees interaction is the widest as it covers employment opportunities, work guidelines, rules and regulations, benefits and employee welfare schemes''.

The Head of Service assured that the platform was stable, secure, reliable, efficient and accessible as a robust infrastructure deployed in line with industry’s best practices and global standard.

''Endeavour to tell your colleagues in the offices to ''Switch to (,gov.ng)’’, am also directing all permanent secretaries to launch it in their respective ministries so that officers could effectively and efficiently utilise the resource.’’

Earlier, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, minister of Communication Technology, said the platform would allow ministries to do messaging and collaboration which are a small but very important tool for e-government in the country.

''It, at the very minimum, reduces the volume of paper correspondence among officers and management in the service'', she noted.