Good governance is central to development and constitutes the primary means for social transformation. The environment that governments operate in, is clearly increasing in complexity and with growing challenges of delivering increased services with shrinking resources. The effective implementation of information technology in government, also known as electronic government (E-government), will improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability in governance.
Over the years, some countries began practicing the act of using technology to drive government activities with success stories in Singapore, China, USA and others, with examples of various ways countries apply elements of technology to serve their specific governance challenges. It is an established fact that the public and government sector in Nigeria cannot continue with outdated concepts of organization and information in today's digital age.
The effects of a backward state of affairs include stalled national development, wastage of public funds, limited human development, inability to key into, benefit or contribute to the Information society. Stone age tools and concepts will not empower the people and further delay can be dangerous.
To help governments curb these challenges in governance and replace the traditional bureaucratic bottlenecks in the public sector with governance equipped with timely and up to date information for decision making, Progenics Corp Limited, an indigenous Information and Communication Technology provider designed and developed for the government in particular, a comprehensive and innovative e-government solution that is in line with the IT policy requirements of the Federal and State governments in Nigeria.
GovAc, a term that represents the difference in Government accounting as against that of the private sector, is an e government application designed to address the requirements in all levels of government in Nigeria with diverse applicability within the sector. GovAc provides government agencies, parastatals, units and officers with improved access to information thereby streamlining their decision making process. With GovAc, the deficiencies of accessing government information by unauthorized persons can be effectively checked. The system has an industry-leading technology that ensures that all data are kept safe and secure while providing access to only those that are authorized to access the information.
The concern of all branches of government agencies at federal, state and local level is how to enhance its operations within its budget provisions. The challenge for them therefore, is how to come up with an up-to-date report of the financial position of government at the end of each fiscal year. Another problem is in the area of revenue collection and disbursement of financial resources. With GovAc e-government solution, budgeting is done with ease. Monies are accurately allocated to different departments with adequate monitoring of how these monies are spent. So auditing can be done anytime and does not have to wait till the end of the fiscal year.
In clear terms, the GovAc system collates the cashbooks of all the departments of government over a given period and reconciles them to ensure that proper accounting records are kept. There is absolutely no chance of cutting corners or chances of falsifying records when using such an integrated platform. The GovAc technology only gives access to changes to few people (like the chief executive of the State) who are authorized to effect changes.
The establishment module of GovAc completely manages the payroll functions of the government and eliminates the issue of ghost workers syndrome. The system monitors and keeps records of personnel from recruitment to retirement. It shows the picture, age, record, and salary as well as generates a payroll for each staff at the touch of a button. The issue of staff having access to their files with which to affect changes will also be eliminated. The system will also give an alert of those who are due for retirement on a day-to-day basis.
The pension administration module manages retired employees from retirement till death. It captures all relevant details of pensioners and enforces periodic verification of pensioners to eliminate ghost pensioners. It also provides an automated pension claims processing methodology such as to eliminate fraud.
With GovAc, the allocation of projects and contracts can also be monitored effectively and efficiently. The system provides government with the ability to plan and manage projects by pre-planning the various elements of the project, estimating the time and resources required to complete any project. For each portion of the project executed, the supervisor generates an electronic certificate, which he tenders and the details are entered into the system. After the appropriate verifications by the Chief executive, this then becomes the basis to generate payment claims for such projects for the contractor.
The solution will also help government keep record of all its assets with the storage of all relevant information about assets including the identification number and the department or even the individual a particular asset is assigned to. It also allows the transfer of assets from one department to the other. In fact, it can realistically be said that, with GovAc, the chief executive while away from the office can still continue governance.
Though progress is been made in improving governance as some components of e-government have already commenced in Nigeria, there is still a need for government to use solutions that will meet their needs and not become a drain on their resources. In addition, such solutions must also be designed to suit the Nigerian public sector environment, and not conventional profit-oriented accounting and management solutions modified to serve such a significant purpose as e-governance.
Currently, there are a number of e-government solutions emerging both locally and internationally but despite these advances; practical experience has shown that the acquisition of a suitable solution is not simple. For the effective implementation of e-government in Nigeria, it is cost effective and imperative that government adopts and deploys local software that will meet their e-government needs.
The most critical aspect that will also play a major role in the choice of software for e-government in Nigeria is the issue of cost. Now cost in this context goes beyond the entry figure paid for these solutions, but the total operational cost (TOC) of deploying these systems. Software is not created in a vacuum; they are designed based on the environment and are more effective when depl oyed in that environment. GovAc is designed based on the Nigerian environment. The software is easy to use; ease of use goes beyond how quickly government can get running with the software but how fast local personnel are able to take over once implementation is completed.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Grace Obiaigwe
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 08.04.2009
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