As the federal government of Nigeria is working assiduously towards achieving paperless activities by the year 2030, the minister of communications and digital economy, Professor Isa Pantami has launched the FinTrak Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Product for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), aimed at digitising services in the public sector.
The minister, who was represented at the event by the director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, stated that digital services are currently the most consumed products in the country.
Speaking on the topic: “Sustainable Development through the Adoption of Indigenous ICT Solutions in the Public Service”, Pantami said to achieve self-sufficiency, Nigerians need to start producing what they consume and vice versa.
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“We all know that only a few Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) today. So, this is a welcome development because it does not only cover the federal government agencies, it also targets the public sector which means taking ICT solutions to a non-consumer sector,” Pantami added.
He commended the FinTrak software team on the innovative solution and informed the audience that plans are underway to train about 1 million developers within 18 months and urged the software developers to key into the initiative.
“Research has shown that no nation can attain a sustainable development without self-sufficiency; to achieve that self-sustainability, we need to start developing ourselves,” the minister stressed.
He added that “About 70-80% of the technology we consume today are software-based and Nigeria has a more competitive advantage to grow in the software sector than in the hardware, given the massive talents that abound in the country, hence, nothing should stop us from achieving self-sufficiency in software development.”
Prof. Pantami further noted that working as a team in achieving self-sufficiency is the way to go as the government needs to work hand-in-hand with the private sector.
“The Nigerian government remains relentless in its commitment to sustaining the enabling environment to entrench innovation hence NITDA established two key subsidiaries – the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI) and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) through which the agency implements programmes and initiatives to inspire innovation among the youth while also strengthening the ecosystem,” Prof. Pantami said.
The minister urged innovators to commercialise and pitch their indigenous innovations to get the attention of investors because innovation brings about investments.
The GMD of FinTrak Software, Bimbo Abioye while making a presentation of the product informed attendees that the company has the potential to engage over 5000 youth if they are very well patronised by the government in its digitisation efforts.
He noted that another critical reason for local content in software is the security of the nation’s data and critical information currently resident in foreign applications.
“FinTrak today is a company with a workforce of over 150. Training 40 young Nigerians at FinTrak Academy. These people are paid and trained for 6 months in readiness to join our workforce. That brings our total workforce to 190. And those 190 people have possibly 10 dependents. So the company is helping to provide a livelihood for 1900 Nigerians and we can do much more,” Abioye said.
He pleaded with the ministry, and agencies it supervises to lead the way in the adoption of FinTrak ERP, performance management and electronic document management system, and eGovernment workflows on a cloud platform while hoping for other MDAs to join the platform towards the achieving of FG’s eGovernance objectives.
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