The Minister of Communications, Dr Isa Pantami, says building the Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills of public servants is key toward digitalising the activities of government and facilitating e-governance.
Pantami said this on Thursday at the closing and awards ceremony of ICT4Change training programme of 1,000 public servants in Abuja.
The training of the public servants was a joint programme between the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) and Huawei Technologies Company, a Chinese technology organisation.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the OSGF and Huawei signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Oct. 25, 2018 to train the second phase of civil servants to boost their ICT skills for e-governance and economic growth of the nation.
The second phase commenced on Jan. 14 and was concluded on June 28 with 101 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in participation, while 935 public servants were trained.
The minister reiterated that part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda is to grow the economy, saying that digitalisation has a huge role in advancing the economy of any nation.
According to him, the Federal Government is making frantic efforts to lift millions of Nigerians from poverty, which can be done through building their ICT skills.
“Challenges in the public sector cannot be handled without digitalisation and public servants need to be kept abreast with the trends in ICT so they can support the activities of government.
“In government’s adoption of digitalisation, we cannot achieve it without capacity building which is compulsory.
“You must develop the capacity of civil servants before benefits can be reaped,” Pantami said.
He commended the collaborative efforts of Huawei in training the public servants, adding that more of such Private-Public Partnerships should be encouraged to foster government’s actualisation of its mandates.
Pantami said that corporate institutions as Huawei owed the society social responsibilities and more should be encouraged.
He, however, urged the participants to deploy the knowledge acquired toward strengthening government’s activities and service delivery.
Mr Chen Zhijun, the Vice President of Huawei Technologies Company said that over the past few years, ICT has contributed in the diversification of Nigerian economy.
“ICT has contributed over 10 per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, some 1.9 million jobs and additional 20 billion dollars will accrue to its GDP.
“Technology continues to offer people new opportunities to engage in online platform work and transition from informal to formal jobs and ICT is a great tool to unleash the potential in people,” he said.
Zhijun explained that ICT4Change programme is part of Huawei Nigeria’s efforts to encourage skills transfer and talent fostering.
He added that the organisation has trained over 20,000 ICT engineers, who have been assisting to strengthen the country’s ICT network and partnering with about 60 tertiary institutions.
The VP reiterated the company’s commitment in boosting availability, accessibility and affordability of ICT services to turn digital inclusion into social and economic inclusion.
The training courses focused on Web Design and Maintenance, Campus Network, e-Government to data analytics, which will provide government ability to leverage on the power of big data among other huge benefits.
NAN also reports that Huawei recognised and awarded 30 outstanding participants in the programme and promised to ensure post-training activities.