An initiative which aims to conduct capacity building programmes for mentoring the leadership in the public service for good governance, in order to promote transparency, honesty and accountability among public office holders, starting from the grassroots - the local government councils to the precise.
Recently, they embarked on the implementation of the eLGA, which is part of the e-Government programmes by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to conduct an e-LGA preview summit in Abuja on December 16, 2008. Which was a precursor to the actual e-LGA summit scheduled for February, 2009.
The event demonstrated the e-LGA platform and how the leadership of the local government administrations would be exposed to the application of structured Information Communication Technology (ICT) for good governance in order to contribute to the present administration's seven-point agenda, for national transformation towards the realisation of vision 20-2020 which as being enunciated by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua aims to position Nigeria among 20 largest economies in the world by the year 2020, of which Nigeria is currently at the 41 position.
In line with the reason for the preview of the eLGA platform, which the chairman eReadiness Nigeria, Alhaji Abubakar Ali said: "Is to provide among other things an advance information for top level decision makers and major e-Government stakeholders in respect of current available tools of public administration of global standards and quality for making the act of governance more user friendly, better guided, and judiciously accountable, especially at the grassroots.
"It is a prelude to the upcoming National e-Government Summit and a 10-month long e-Readiness capacity building to commence in February, 2009 for all local government administrators and key functionaries throughout Nigeria".
Secretary to the government of the federation, Alhaji Mahmud Yayale Ahmed also informed Nigerians during the eLGA preview summit that "the initiative which is to commence by February 2008, has been designed to empower each local government council in Nigeria by infecting Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools in a structured manner to make them efficient and responsible to the citizens needs so as to propel national productivity from the grassroots.
"The main goal of the eLGA project is to establish a central platform where the functions and activities of local government can be harmonized and through which any local government council can interact with other councils, with citizens and businesses at anytime irrespective of their locations. The platform ties together local government operations such as data gathering, revenue generation, job creation along with routine administrative functions and collaborations.
"It also enables special activities such as education and health management, and also has interface to serve as electronic gateway to investors, tourist and the rest of the world". The use of the eLGA platform, he continued, "will greatly enhance the ability of government to acquire spatially distributed data for evaluating and monitoring data to guide the policy formation, planning, grow and expanding the economy to meet the national objectives of vision 20-2020", SGF said.
The preview summit provided an insight into how the eLGA platform has been designed to assist in acquiring necessary data for evaluating and monitoring the attainments of grassroots - data-driven initiatives such as Millennium Development Goals, NAPEP, UBE, etc. in order to ensure these and make a current contribution to government goal such as seven-point agenda. It also provided a glance into the multi-dimensional platform whose capabilities incorporate the following:
First, the ability to provide 21st Century tool with which the local governments can manage and utilise data for administering and managing their activities and operations. The use of data to guide the formulation of policies, the process of planning and to monitor the outcomes of decisions.
Second: the ability to provide a modern electronic medium to acquire, update, and verify data which would continuously ensure currency and accuracy of data that are pivoted to administration of local councils in terms of availability, adequacy, or deficit of socio-economic infrastructure (school, healthcare, outlets, market stalls, roads, improved water supply facilities, public sanitation facilities, and so on) in meeting the needs of the citizens.
Third: the ability to access vital information in respect to any local government council in Nigeria and provide a window of incentives for perspective investors, venture capitalists, tourist and development partners in a way that may improve the economies of government at all tiers.
Finally, the ability to enable and encourage broad based interaction between the government and the governed, leading to "responsive governance" and e-Participation.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Joshua Uma
Quelle/Source: LeadershipNigeria, 31.12.2008
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