Tech

FG approved N152bn IT projects in 12 months; Pantami

Published

2 years ago

January 12, 2022

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The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami, has disclosed that the National Information Technology Development Agency approved 499 Information Technology projects worth N152billion in 2021.

The minister disclosed this at the closing of the 2021 service-wide capacity building program on e-government in Abuja on Tuesday.

The NITDA serves as the clearinghouse for IT projects in Nigeria, as it has been mandated to clear all IT projects in line with the policy objectives of the Federal Government to maximize transparency and accountability in the carrying out IT projects by public institutions.

The Federal Government had issued a circular in 2006 directing all public institutions planning to embark on any IT project to obtain clearance from NITDA.

According to the minister, the projects cleared in 2021, which are worth N152bn, exceed the N9bn worth of projects cleared in 2019.

This, he said, showed the government’s commitment to spending on digitalization.

He said, “To show to us the level of the implementation of the government’s digital services in the country, from January to December 2021, NITDA, on behalf of the government, has approved the execution of 499 projects. However, the approved projects include the backlog of 2020 and 2019.

“In 2021, the approval given by NITDA for the institutions could implement according to their projects is about N152bn. If you compare this with 2019, it was only N9bn. This is to show us that government has been spending for the digitalization of government services.”

The minister also disclosed that the Federal Government had approved 16 national policies for the ICT digital economy.