In a recent presentation of Enterprise e-Governance Operations Solutions, in Abuja, the President was said to be impressed with the performance of the product which was presented to a to a cross section of Presidential Advisers, Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and other top government officials. The event was the last Presidential retreat held at the Banquet Hall of the Villa. According to Chris Uwaje, the Chief Architect of the EGOS Software Solution and CEO of Connect Technologies, who made the presentation, “EGOS is the core engine for Government to Government (G2G) Application. The Application software is 100 percent indigenous effort, based on 26 months Research, Design and Development Cycle. The solution is an ERP Groupware, fulfilling the major functions of an Enterprise Resource Planning for government entities. As the world transits into the information age, new conditions are being created for future economic (industrial) success. We innovated the Nigerian response - within the context of governance – to sustain 21st century rapid development competitiveness and bridge our 'digital (knowledge) divide'.
He said the Enterprise E-Governance Operations Solutions (EGOS) was designed to enhance the capability of government to organise, manage and deliver resource information for executive, legislative, judiciary, task allocation and workflow administration and management, and all levels of governance.
The G2G portfolio’s primary goal is to enable federal, state and local governments to more easily work together to better serve citizens within key lines of business. To achieve this goal the Federal government, Uwaje stated, must make it easier for states and localities to meet reporting requirements, while promoting the use of performance measurements.
According to him, state and local governments will see significant administrative savings and will be able to improve program delivery because the data necessary to measure performance will be more accurate and timely. Improving the way that information is shared among all levels of government has numerous benefits.
He said the solution is a secured IP-based Intranet portal that will improve the disaster management process by simplifying and unifying the interaction between Federal, state, and local government operations.
He further stated that now, e-Government operations has taken centre state on the declaration of the Millennium Agenda for Peace by the United Nations.
Uwaje noted that a US survey released in April 2003 by the Council for Excellence in Government observed that 75 percent of e-Government users think e-Government has made it easier to get information, and 67 percent like doing transactions with government online.
Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, reports that more than one-third of all Internet users visited a federal government website in February 2003, and about half of all businesses went online in January 2003 to interact with the Federal government.
He further stated that the US Congress recognized the importance of e-Government through the passage of the e-Government Act of 2002, signed into law by the President on December 17, 2002. He said the Administration sees this Act as a valuable contribution to drive forward the current work that is improving government through electronic means. It codifies and expands the e-Government leadership role of OMB through the establishment of an Office of e-Government and Information Technology headed by an administrator appointed by the president.
Uwaje said Connect Technologies Limited was fully prepared to start a pilot run of the program for the nation. He also said that the solution has been subjected to a wide range of peer-review – based on global standard and best practice models. The response from IT professionals both at home and abroad acknowledge the effort put into the work and commended Connect Technologies, for engaging and leading the global IT competitiveness on e-Governance for Nigeria.
The overall e-Government strategy will address the following areas:
- Driving results and productivity growth: IT and management reform investments that create an order of magnitude improvement in value to the citizen, especially in the areas of information reasoning, security information sharing and knowledge enhancement flow;
- Maximizing and Controlling procurement costs: Consolidating redundant and overlapping investments, enterprise licensing, fixing cost overruns, and competing away excess IT and related services charges;
- Implementing the E-Government Laws: Including government-wide architecture governance and web-based strategies for improving access to high quality information and services;
- Improving cyber security: Desktop, data, applications, networks, threat and vulnerability-focused, business continuity, and privacy protection; and others.
Quelle: This Day, 09.09.2005
