By Bridget Ikyado/Angela Atabo
Abuja – The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) on Tuesday emerged overall best in the provison of better and efficient online services out of 220 MDAs in the country.
Mr Segun Folayan, member of the Inter-ministerial Task Team that conducted the assessment, made this known at the presentation of the Scorecard ranking of websites of Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), in Abuja.
Folayan said that over 220 MDAs were assessed based on provison of efficient online services on the Web in an integrated and more customer-focused manner.
He added that the assessment also covered availability and accessibility of the websites.
Afolayan also announced the National Identity Management Commission (NIMCE) as second best while the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Cooperation (NDIC) came third.
He said that the team also noted the rise in the number of MDAs requesting to have websites and different domains that their portals and websites can run on.
Folayan said this would bring an era of effective service delivery to the nation.
In his speech, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPRS), Dasuki Arabi said that the scorecard ranking was a peer review mechanism for strengthening the capacity of MDAs to ensure transparency, accountability and good governance.
Arabi said that it was also an initiative for digital space business platform, aimed at providing timely and unrestricted access to government information and services.
He added that the 2021-2022 ranking of websites of MDAs by the Bureau was based on 16 criteria.
Arabi said the criteria included strict adherence to the national e-government master plan, aesthetic design, functional telephone lines and email addresses.
He explained that the aim was to ensure effective service delivery through easy access to information on the activities of the MDAs.
The D-G said training of civil servants at federal, state and local government levels would transform the country’s public service to deliver efficient services to Nigerians.
He commended the ICPC for meeting all the criteria to emerge top on the ranking and urged other MDAs to ensure compliance with the e-government website master plan.
“The scorecard initiative has brought a lot of innovations to the transformation efforts of government towards the attainment of 21st century public service.
“Citizens can from their comfort zones access drivers licence, tax clearance, register businesses, access agricultural input.
“While this is an inspiring achievement worth celebrating, our findings has equally shown that there are challenges of skill gap, which must be adequately bridged,” he added.
Arabi, therefore, said BPRS would train over 500,000 civil servants on digital literacy to make Nigerian civil service among the best 20 in the world.
“In placing all Federal MDAs on the same level playing field, the training programme is expected to equip all relevant desk officers managing government websites to be fully accustomed with and appropriately apply the criteria of the scorecard.
“The scorecard is an important index metric the National e-Government Masterplan has employed for determining the Nigeria e-Government Status.
“The expectation is that, when websites of the MDAs are fully standardized, it would help to improve access to government information, facilitate access to government services online, reduce man-to-man contact and eliminate corruption in public financial transaction.”
The Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Dr Jumoke Oduwole said that the ranking system would help stakeholders update their websites and keep Nigerians abreast with the lastest happenings in various MDAs. (NAN/vitalnewsngr.com)
