The Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa, has said that the implementation of enterprise content management (ECM) can save Nigeria N4.5Billion annually.
Inuwa made this disclosure while presenting a paper on the topic, “The Modalities of Software Clearance on ECM Solution for MDAs”, during the one-day ECM Service-Wide Round Table Workshop at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja.
The DG, who was represented by Dr. Usman Gambo Abdullah, the Director, Information Technology Infrastructure Solutions (ITIS), emphasized on the importance of ECM implementation stating that it is a critical success factor required by any enterprise to survive in a modern and competitive world to aid information availability agile business processes and conformity to governmental regulatory requirements.
He said: “Constraints such as complexity of massive volumes of variant data and information that exists in a broad array of formats, complex and extended business processes spanning across the business functions and partners around the globe, the need for integration and interoperability, fulfillment of compliance to legal and regulatory requirements are expected to be resolved by the implementation of the ECM”.
“The Federal Public Institutions (FPIs) and other Government establishments are not left out in this pursuit of digital transformation excellence, which is in line with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for a Digital Nigeria (NDEPS2020-2030) as well as Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021-2025 (FCSSIP2021-2025).
He further spoke of inherent advantages: “Digitalisation of Government processes facilitates transparency, efficiency, productivity, participation, inclusiveness, cost savings, and competitive advantage, which ultimately translates to social and economic development for a country like Nigeria.
“Therefore, digitalisation of Government processes is no longer a choice, but a must for any country aiming for development. ECM is used to manage information throughout its lifecycle, in line with the Digital Services Development and Promotion Pillar of NDEPS, among others,” he added.
According to the NITDA boss, some of the benefits of ECM to FPls include saving employees time for mining information from physical paper documents, reduced cost of file storage and paper needs, and strengthening security by ensuring information confidentiality, integrity, availability, and increasing in regulatory compliance.
He referred to the Federal Government Circular No SGF/6/S.19/T65 of April 18, 2006 that directed all Federal Public Institutions planning to embark on any IT project to obtain clearance from NITDA.
This directive was re-issued on the 31stAugust, 2018 with Circular Number59736/S.2/C.11/125, reiterating the need for all FPls and other Government establishments to relate with and obtain clearance before embarking on any IT project.
He noted that to ensure seamless implementation of this mandate, NITDA issued a Guideline on IT Project Clearance in line with the need for a coordinated, standardised, and orderly approach to the deployment of IT systems by FPIs.
He further disclosed that a total of 258 projects from 97 FPls amounting to a total investment ofN152,043,373,117.25 were cleared, in2021 and a total of N24,403,266,842.86 was saved for the Government in the same year.
