The Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) has launched the FinTrak Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Product for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), aimed at digitizing services in the public sector, as the Federal Government of Nigeria is working towards achieving paperless activities by the year 2030.
Speaking on ‘Sustainable Development through the Adoption of Indigenous ICT Solutions in the Public Service’, Pantami said to achieve self-sufficiency, Nigerians needs to start producing what they consume and vice versa, stating that digital services are currently the most consumed products in the country.
The Minister, who was represented at the event by the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa, commended the FinTrak Software team on the innovative solution and informed participants that plans are underway to train about one million developers within 18 months, urging 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.
“About 70-80% technology we consume today are software based and Nigeria has 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”. The Minister added.
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.
“It is not something we can do in silos. We need each other to create the needed push for sustainability. The Federal Government on its part is not sitting on its oars but finding better ways to create an enabling environment, formulate appropriate policies and build critical infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities, all in a bid to engender the desired transformation”
“National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy NDEPS and NITDA’s ambitious target of achieving a 95% digital literacy are some of the key different policies and programmes of the Federal Government as it looks forward to a Digital Nigeria by 2030.
The Minister therefore urged innovators to commercialize and pitch their indigenous innovations to get the attention of investors, as 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 patronized by Government in its digitization efforts.
“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 achieving FG’s eGovernance objectives.