Ministry of Information wins 1st position for best website

The Federal Ministry of Information won first position in the rank of best Federal Government websites in ensuring Ease of Doing Business.

Also, SERVICOM came in second position with the Federal Ministry of Justice in third.

Our correspondent reports that 70 MDAs were evaluated by the Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) as a pilot scheme and members of the team were drawn from various MDAs

Mr Dasuki Arabi, Acting Director General Bureau of Public Service Reforms, revealed this at the “Release of the 2018 Evaluation Result of the FG score card for ranking websites of Federal Public Institutions”.

Arabi said that it had been revealed that majority of government Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) who are the machinery for implementing government policies lack functional websites.

He added that the Bureau in collaboration with the Inter-Ministerial Task Team institutionalised the federal government score card for ranking websites to remove constraints in accessing information on government websites.

“The Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business is a policy that demonstrates the government’s aspiration to diversify the nation’s economy.

“Contrary to the intention of this laudable policy, it has been revealed that less than 30 per cent of the MDAs have accessible websites and less than 25 per cent have active email addresses and telephone numbers.

“Thereby underpinning the poor performance implementation of the FOI act. In most cases the website are deficient of requisite capacity to drive operations and the much envisaged reforms in the way government businesses are rendered.

“The key objectives behind the conception of the score card was to remove constraints in accessing information on government websites and reduce human contacts in the delivery of public goods and services by creating a peer review platform for the MDAs,” he said.

He explained that the exercise was not to disgrace any MDA but to improve service delivery through accessible websites by ensuring information was readily available and disseminated widely.

He added that the score card which had been designed upon a criteria in 14 thematic areas and globally accepted Key Perfomance Indicators were used by the Jury to evaluate the MDAs.

He also said that the initiative would promote transparency in line with the FOI act and open up government agenda and activities to public view for scrutiny.

Arabi said he believed that the ICT regulators both private and public and service providers would take the evaluation results and deepen synergy among themselves to promote good governance.

The MDAs are, Galaxy Backbone, Nigerian Internet Registration Association, The Right to Know an NGO, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation and Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation among others.

Mr Aliyu Umar, representative from the ministry of information said that he was elated that the ministry won the first position.

Umar, who said information is power, added that the ministry would would continue to do its best to stay at the top in the area of ICT.

He advised other MDAs to ensure they update their websites regularly to improve service delivery and promote ease of doing business.