By Dayo Omoogun
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, on Monday in Abuja, launched an Electronic Records Management (ERM) platform
to enable fast and easy tracking of incoming and outgoing mails and letters from and to the Ministry.
The Permanent Secretary Dr. Mohammed Isa Dutse, who stood in for the Minister Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, noted that the launch was another part fulfilment of the current administration’s larger service wide digitization masterplan and the Ministry’s commitment towards improving service delivery to the citizenry. According to the Minister, “this commitment was underpinned by the current administration’s desire to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery, the promotion of inter-agency synergy as well as the fight against corruption.”
The Minister stated “that the project would enhance tracking of incoming and outgoing letters, enhance productivity, quality assurance, reduce turnaround time and enhance efficiency in service delivery, while ensuring the preservation and safety of the Ministry’s documents” and used the opportunity to enlist the cooperation of the staff in order to ensure the success of the project.
Speaking earlier, the Permanent Secretary Special Duties in the Ministry, Dr. Mohammed K. Dikwa, stated among other things that “upon complete deployment of the system, the Ministry, and by extension the nation stood to benefit immensely in terms of enhanced productivity, cost reduction of turn-around time, business continuity and quality assurance.”
Mr. Dikwa, therefore congratulated the Ministry on breaking the jinx in Federal Government’s manual processing of record keeping and challenged the staff to brace up for effective implementation of the all-important project if the benefits outlined above are to be attained, adding that the Ministry should ensure seamless implementation of the project so that the success of the document management automation innovation will serve as benchmark for other MDAs to emulate.