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E-PPAN to address sustainable development at e-Government Summit

By BusinessNews Staff on February 27, 2015

The E-Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PPAN) has concluded plans to host the next edition of the e-Government Summit, with the theme; “E-Government: Key to Sustainable development.”

Scheduled to hold in Abuja in July this year, the summit seeks to address issues such as access, efficiency, transparency, cooperation and sustainable development in the area of e-government.

The Committee of E-Banking Industry Heads (CeBIH), First Bank Nigeria Plc and SecureID Nigeria Limited, which are members of the E-PPAN Governing Board, are expected to work with the E-PPAN’s secretariat as planning committee, for the event.

Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of E-PPAN, Mrs. Onajite Regha, said the objective of the summit is to create a platform for developing outstanding models and formulate winning strategies, which will enhance government administrative productivity, efficiency and transparency.

This, she said, would be centred on improving efficiency in government service delivery, and moving away from a ‘silo approach’ to greater collaboration between the private and public sector for sustainable development and economic growth.

Other objectives include exploring how government can manage the process of innovation in the context of public finance and how technology can improve the process of governance itself.

According to Regha: “The 2015 e-government summit will provide an exciting opportunity for public sector to learn from and network with private sector experts as we identify common challenges and share useful solutions. As part of our strategy, we will be collaborating with major government agencies and state governments.”

She explained that the summit formerly called the “E-Payment for government summit” was borne out of the desire to be a driver of a new generation of e-services in public sector, providing a platform where decision makers and top government officials meet with the best and brightest of the e-payment industry on a single platform. This has been successfully achieved in three consecutive conferences.

She maintained that the e-government summit would proffer strategies and solutions for identified issues which will propel new steps towards the changing needs and challenges of the public sector in terms of achieving excellence in service delivery, infrastructure and attaining both organisational and national transformation.

“It will also provide an exciting platform for industry experts, key government representatives, and professionals from various government ministries departments and agencies (MDAs) across the three tiers of government to discuss the latest issues and trends related to e-government,” she added.

The Business and Strategy Development Manager of E-PPAN, Ms Ntia Sylvia, said governments are currently looking for powerful tools to reinvent themselves, and that the summit presents a better platform to achieve that.

“They are being encouraged to transform from the traditional bureaucratic paradigm, which emphasises standardisation, departmentalisation, and operational cost-efficiency, to the “e-Government” paradigm, which emphasises coordinated network building, external collaboration and citizen oriented service,” Sylvia said.

“This growing interest in e-Government raises the question of how governments can efficiently and effectively improve their services to its citizens. E-Government becomes especially important given its potential to reduce costs and improve service compared with alternative traditional modes,” she added.

Sylvia also stressed that the e-government summit would highlight ways that government agencies could achieve economies of scale in the use of information technology through collaboration with the private sector and between the various levels of government through shared services arrangements.

“The summit will bring together, diverse stakeholders from across the country, including representatives from government, business and education, that will commit to sharing technology solutions for operating in today’s fiscal environment,” she added.

[ThisDay]

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