March 09, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has approved a policy that mandates public institutions to obtain a quality assurance certificate from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), for any Information and Communication Technology project that is up to N1 billion.
The Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, stated this while briefing State House correspondents after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo.
Pantami explained that the policy is aimed at making government and people derive maximum benefit from the country’s investments in ICT.
“We discovered that sometimes an approval or clearance could be granted, but in the course of implementation, some of the specifications will be changed.
“If there is no quality assurance certificate, we will not be able to know whether the project is implemented according to the clearance or not.
“Secondly, it is part of building a system and some of the stages of building a system include feasibility study, preliminary investigation, system design, system analysis, system coding, system implementation and system testing.
“So, it is through system testing that we would be able to certify and confirm the quality of that system and whether is assured or not.
“So, what is most important is that from today henceforth, any ICT project that is up to N1 billion, after obtaining the clearance, at the end of the project, that institution is required to look for quality assurance certificate so that we will be able to derive the maximum benefit of that investment”, he said.
According to Pantami, the IT Project Clearance Performance Report for Government Digital Services for 2021, which his ministry presented at the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, showed that about N24 billion was saved by the government following critical scrutiny of the ICT project submitted by institutions.
He said the report, which covered January 1 to December 31, 2021, captured all the IT Projects in the country, particularly towards the government’s digital services for the whole year.
“In that report, it is clearly stated that 282 major projects were submitted for clearance. Out of this number, 258 were cleared, while 24 were rejected.
“The total amount submitted seeking permission to implement the project was over N213 billion by many federal public institutions. Out of this, NITDA cleared about N154 billion naira.
“If you compute the amount submitted and the amount approved, you will discover that we are able to save more than N24 billion for the federal government of Nigeria”, he added.
Pantami said that the Federal Government had in a circular on August 31, 2018, emphasised the need for public institutions to comply with the NITDA Act 2007 Section 6, Article A, which stipulates that IT Projects clearance must be obtained before they embark on any project.
“This is part of the strategies for introducing IT Projects Clearance; to save cost and to fight corruption.
“This is very important and we have been discovering so many cases that were suspicious and we reviewed them critically and drew the attention of institutions where necessary.
“Some institutions were even reported to the EFCC or any institution of government as the case may be.
“Also part of the benefit is to ensure the security of digital facilities because part of the clearance is that any project submitted will be reviewed critically to ensure that the security of our country, particularly our cyberspace is not going to be compromised.
“Also the clearance makes sure that it is in compatibility with Nigeria Digital Economic Policy and Strategy, Nigeria E-government Enterprise Architecture and the Nigeria E-government interoperability framework”, he said.
The Minister, who said that many Federal Government institutions have been complying with the directive, noted that the mandate to obtain quality assurance certificate is another layer of efforts to ensure quality in the system.
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