To reduce the government’s expenses associated with the procurement of IT products and services, Nigerian Federal Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) have been asked to ensure that their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) include provisions for warranty, downtime, and after-sale support.
Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), presented a statement titled “Review of the Guidelines for the Introduction of SLA in Government Contracts” this week in Abuja at the Consumer Protection Forum.
The goals of the guideline, which is in accordance with Sections 6a, 17, 18(4), and 32 of the NITDA Act 2007, according to the NITDA head, are to guarantee that IT initiatives in government are executed and supported in a sustainable and timely way.
Furthermore, it is critical to ensure that the government’s IT services are continuously of high quality and delivered in a way that allows it to maximize its investment in digital technology assets.
When executing government IT contracts, Abdullahi noted that NITDA intends to begin building a culture of SLA compliance.
“The NITDA IT Clearance has shown to be a major cost saver for the Federal Government,” Abdullahi, who was represented by Mr. Oladejo Olawunmi, Director, Standards, Guidelines, and Framework, remarked.
The NITDA director defined the meeting as a platform that brings together suppliers and users of IT goods and services to address areas where IT service delivery encounters obstacles. He also stated that it will improve customer understanding of their rights surrounding IT goods and services in order to promote efficient and effective service delivery. The rise of the Nigerian digital economy, he asserted, would be inhibited by specific problems that the Consumer Protection Forum would identify.
“Two weeks ago, NITDA conducted a very successful international conference, the Digital Nigeria International Conference where the need to bring down obstacles which inhibit innovation in the Digital Economy was strongly advocated. “The Consumer Protection Forum provides a venue for identifying such hurdles,” he stated.
“NITDA, under its mandate of regulation of the IT sector in Nigeria and in furtherance of its Developmental Regulation pillar, which is one of the seven pillars of the Agency’s Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan (SRAP 2021-2024) is always seeking to ensure the efficient and effective delivery of IT products and services. This is due to the enormous role IT has played in the country’s economy in recent years, as well as the more pressing necessity for the Digital Economy to give much-needed relief from the current global economic slowdown.”
He stated that a “viable enabling environment” is required for the digital economy to survive, adding that it is not enough to simply have advances in emerging technologies, but also to guarantee that industry participants prosper in a mutually cohesive environment, which makes SLAs a necessity.
Barrister Babatunde Bamigboye, the guideline’s principal reviewer, noted in a sideline interview that the goal of the guideline is to ensure the sustainability of government IT projects and services throughout the Federal Public Institutions. He stated that the decision will help the government save money.
“The SLAs implies the government will not have to be spending money continually on ICT. We start with one and work our way up. That is the ultimate goal, and it would allow our digital economy to be built on something sustainable. “If we are talking about the digital economy, the infrastructure should be on solid ground in terms of ICT, and how can we get the solid infrastructure if we don’t have agreements or guidelines on how to get those infrastructures in place,” he said.
Participants at the event, who represented a variety of MDAs, agreed that putting the regulations in place would ensure successful delivery of products and services.
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