Charges staff to use new condition as a springboard for greater impact, performance
By Dwelleth Morountodun
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ibrahim Pantami, has expressed excitement on President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval of a new scheme of service and working conditions of service for staff of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The approval was granted on February 12, 2021.
While charging the members of staff to raise their bar of performance and service delivery to the nation, he said the scheme will serve as a veritable tool for making the agency more functional as it develops into becoming one of the most strategic government institutions in the country.
The Minister made the disclosure while addressing Heads of Parastatals of the Ministry even at the instance of the Chairman of NITDA Governing Board, Dr. Abubakar Sa’id, the Director-General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi, Management and Staff of NITDA, in Abuja.
According to him, the new scheme will provide the approved cadre for the agency and specifies the skills and certifications required for appointment and promotion, adding that it identifies 15 different cadres for the agency.
Pantami, said: “We are grateful to the President for his support and the confidence he has reposed in us. We are doing our best to justify this confidence by ensuring that our initiatives support the programmes of the government.”
The 2020 Fourth Quarter (Q4 2020) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that our modest efforts are yielding positive results which reflected in the significant growth experienced by the ICT Sector, the Minister, said.
The report, he said, indicated that the ICT sector recorded a 14.7% growth rate, making it the sector with the highest growth rate.
The growth rate of the ICT sector was over 4 times the growth rate of the Agriculture sector, which was the sector with the second highest growth rate, the Minister, added.
“It is noteworthy that the ICT sector was the only sector with a double digit growth rate. In fact, when one considers the 2nd to 7th fastest growing sectors (Agriculture- 3.42%, Health and Social Services – 3.05%, Real Estate- 2.81%, Water Supply et al- 1.92%, Public Admin- 1.80% and Construction- 1.21%), the 14.7% growth rate of the ICT sector was greater than the combined 14.21% growth of the 2nd to 6th fastest growing sectors.
“Furthermore, the ICT sector also recorded the highest growth rate in the overall year 2020 assessment, growing at 12.9%, or over 3 times the next fastest growing sector of 2020. The telecommunications sub sector did extremely well as well.
“This scheme of service will serve as a veritable tool for making the Agency more functional as it develops into becoming one of the most strategic government institutions in Nigeria. It provides the approved cadre for the Agency and specifies the skills and certifications required for appointment and promotion in the Agency. The Scheme identifies 15 different cadres for the agency.” he said.
The new conditions of service, the minister said, is to re-engineer the operations and structure of the agency with the aim of providing an enabling environment for effective strategy development and execution.
This will match the global industry requirements that are needed to develop and regulate the innovative and agile digital economy industry.
According to him, the scheme and conditions of service are a culmination of a process which he commenced as Director-General/CEO of NITDA in 2016 and continued till August 2019, when he was appointed as a Minister.
He admitted that the process was continued by the current Director-General/CEO, Kashifu Abdullahi, when he resumed as a Minister on the 21st of August, 2019.
The scheme and conditions of service will enable the agency effectively key into the digital economy mandate of the federal government, enhance the corporate culture of the agency, attract and retain highly skilled staff.
Pantami, recalled that the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHoCSF) received the final versions of both documents for vetting in May 2018, adding that in February 2019, the agency was then advised to forward the scheme and conditions of service to a higher authority for approval.
This advice informed my decision to forward the request for approval to Mr. President, being the highest constitutional authority in Nigeria as the No 1 Citizen.
He said: “Both documents took almost 5 years to complete and they present a holistic approach to the development of the agency on one hand and the employees on the other. Key areas include the introduction of paternity and compassionate leave, responsibility award, transfer benefits and staff home ownership loan, among others.
I always encourage people to ridicule their previous achievements if they truly want to surpass them. In line with this and as part of the implementation of the conditions and scheme of service, I have directed the Board and Management of NITDA to ensure that there is a significant improvement in the performance of the Agency.
We are committed to attracting and retaining highly skilled and highly motivated personnel in the digital economy sector, including all the parastatals under our supervision. To this end, I have directed the Management of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to develop a career structure and conditions of service for NIMC.
The agency has a critical role to play in the development of Nigeria’s Digital Economy and I urge you to use the approval of this Scheme and Conditions of Service as a springboard for greater impact.