By Seun Adams
The Federal Government through the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has commenced the capacity building on e-Government
with the directorate cadre of the service from various Ministries, Extra-Ministerial, Department and Agencies (MDAs) and states civil servants.
The Directorate Cadre from Grade Level 15-17 batches A & B had their training at the e-Government Training Centre, Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), Kubwa, Abuja from Tuesday-Friday, August 11-14.
During the closing ceremony, the Chairman Governing Board, e-Government Training Centre, the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr. Kashifu Abdullahi stated that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy has directed the Governing Board to train all civil servants in the country on e-government in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s directives to ensure digitalization process of government activities.
He said there is a virtual platform for other public servants and they have been moving around the country to conduct different categories of training for citizens including women, physically challenged persons, artisans, graduates and entrepreneurs.
According to him, this is the first stage for the mainstream civil servant, “we are starting with the directorate cadre and it is going to be in form of train the trainers and we expect you to pass the knowledge to your subordinate working under you before their training”. We also have a virtual platform to learn other things so that you can practice and improve on what you learnt”.
In his contribution, the Co-Chairman, Governing Board and Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Prof. Muhammed Bello Abubakar said that the e-government training is meant to improve the quality of service delivery to the citizens and transparency in government activities.
He noted that the major aim of the training is to sensitize and show the direction to the civil servants on the role of e-government in reducing corruption and cost of government activities as well as economic development of the nation.
Prizes were won by officials of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Director Finance and Account, Federal Ministry of Communications, Mr. Ayuba Bello, and the star prize went to Winifred Kachallah Wang of the Plateau State Information Technology and Development Agency.
This is the first time Nigerian resource persons from the private and public sector would conduct the e-government training after they had received training from experts from South Korea.