Anambra State government has distributed laptops to the Heads of the Department of Budget, Planning, Research and Statistics (DBPRS) across the 21 Local Government Areas of the State, for data collection and storage.
The state Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs, Mr TonyCollins Nwabunwanne, while handing over the systems to the 21 officials, said it would encourage them to function effectively on their various job schedules.
Nwabunwanne said that the one-day capacity training program was organized in collaboration with Anambra State ICT Agency, with the theme, ‘Empowering Data-Driven Governance through Technology’, urging the participants to take good advantage of the opportunity offered to improve their knowledge of their various fields.
While declaring the event open, he commended Governor Chukwuma Soludo for transiting government administration from analogue to a digital system of administration and for providing work tools for them.
The Commissioner also expressed appreciation to the governor for all his policies aimed at taking the state civil service to the next level and encouraged the government officials to use the equipment to work optimally and improve their productivity.
“The Ministry is working to see how to support staff of the LGAs to acquire laptops for their self-development under an easy payment pattern.
“The governor has also approved that all the LGAs be furnished with furniture for the workers and had requested all the LGAs to send in their demands.
“Today, we are witnessing this training and presentation of laptops and you all will agree that the governor is genuinely committed to transforming the Local Government System.
“All we are asking is that you ensure that the knowledge garnered is deployed to increase the revenue of the state.
“Ensure that you are exact with respect to data and figures and also work together and learn from your colleagues.
“I assure you that the training will continue to ensure that you are kept up-to-date on innovations in your field of endeavour,” he appealed.
In his remarks, the Managing Director, Anambra ICT Agency, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata, reiterated the vision of the governor to enthrone a regime that thinks technology first and leverages the same in all its dealings.
According to him, the governor is driving this vision through the ICT agency and many MDAs of the state government have keyed in already.
In his words; “The target of Mr Governor with this, is to maximize data collection based on the recommendation of the revenue mobilization and fiscal commission, Abuja.
“This training will be done physically and we will follow it up with online sessions to enable the officers to understand the software used for this data collection and apply it appropriately.
“We want you to be able to understand how to, as you are uploading this to the RMAC Abuja, you also upload to the state server because what we have observed is that there are no available data to work with.
“We also observed that there are not many digital work tools and this has limited the productivity of workers and this is a major strength of the private sector.
“We realised that if we don’t do anything about this, it will be a big problem for the state. So, we are introducing the PC policy to ensure that there are work tools to enable them to work effectively. That is why the government is presenting the laptops to you.”
Congratulating the LGA officials on the new knowledge and work tools, CFA urged them to ensure that the impact of the work tools is felt in the way they do their work going forward.
He assured that the ICT agency will follow through to support them to internalize the digitization demands so as to make the most use of it.
According to him, “It is one Anambra, one agenda and the ICT Agency is poised to drive the vision of ‘Everything Technology and Technology Everywhere’ to fruition.”
Also speaking, the Chairman, Anambra State Local Government Service Commission, LGSC, Chief Vin Ezeaka described data as key and noted that the efforts to use digital work tools to collect data is quite commendable.
He spoke of plans to launch the project “Own Your Laptop” for all LGA workers to ensure that tools abound to work with at the LGA system.
In their vote of thanks, the Head of Budget Planning, Research and Statistics, BPRS department, Onitsha North, Okafor Chijioke and his Nnewi North counterpart, Uche Ogbonna expressed appreciation to the governor for the training and the laptop, saying there will be a positive change in their productivity level.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then