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Nigeria seeks services of Oracle and Microsoft to fight corruption
The move is aimed at modernising the process of governance, reduce cost and fight corruption in the country.
Microsoft is the biggest PC software company in the world
In a statement released by the Presidency, an initiative by Oracle has helped to remove over 50,000 ghost workers and fake entries from the government's payroll.
The Black African nation, in recent time, has adopted a rigorous approach towards reducing its recurrent expenditure. This is necessary due to mounting cost of running the government amid declining revenue.
Details of 2017 budget on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure showed about N41 billion ($134 million) was allocated, a figure about 50% increment to its IT budget in 2016.
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Also, Nigeria is seeking to improve transparency in government and recovery from its worst economic downturn using technology. This move would also extend to government revenue collection and other aspect of public administration.
Nigeria is ranked 136 of the 167 countries on the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index of 2016.
According to the Microsoft Nigeria’s Director of Public Sector Work, Hakeem Adeniji-Adele, “the government’s digitisation drive is imperative in cutting out the middle man.”
“The existence of middle men has left room for corrupt and illegal practices to thrive in governance and business in Nigeria.”
An official of the government in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment also stated that the government is in talk with Microsoft to improve e-services, which would impact the government’s goal to improve its ranking on World Bank Ease of Doing Business.
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With all these in place, the bureaucracy in the ward of government permits, licenses and other regulatory documents would be reduced.
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