A SPEECH PRESENTED BY THE HEAD OF SERVICE ON THE OCCASION OF THE ONE DAY WORKSHOP ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SAP IN DELTA STATE FOR PERMANENT SECRETARIES IN THE STATE CIVIL SERVICE HELD AT THE CONFERENCE HALL OF THE NEW SECRETARIAT COMPLEX ON 1ST FEBRUARY, 2006.

Permanent Secretaries,
Gentlemen of the Press,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

I wish to formally welcome you to this workshop on the on-going implementation of the SAP (Systems Application Product) software for the business processes and finance management of the Delta State Government.

When His Excellency, Chief James Ibori took over the mantle of leadership of Delta State in 1999, the payment and accounting systems of the State was largely manual. It was a situation that compelled most business processes and analysis to be carried out manually, with its attendant strain on staff.

The Government's overall efforts and concern to improve productivity and accuracy in reporting of its operations necessitated the need to build effective technologically driven management information systems that would cope with the rising volume of business transactions. Against this background, the Government embarked on the transformation of its existing processes to the SAP R/3 Solution.

As you are possibly aware, the Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning and the Office of the Accountant-General were used as the pilot for the implementation of the programme. This phase was completed last year. The implementation is now at the phase of being rolled out to other ministries in the state.

With the implementation of the SAP software, a number of challenges have arisen, principal of which has been the need to develop a critical mass of required skill set to operate the system. To overcome this challenge a number of training programmes have been scheduled for the next few months for intended users of the system. This workshop happens to be one of such planned training programmes.

This workshop will focus on an overview of the practical operations of the SAP business processes with particular reference to the linkages between SAP R/3 solution and the existing financial processes of the Civil Service. It is hoped that at the end of this workshop, the participants would have a greater understanding of the new processes, appreciate and embrace the change for greater service delivery.

It is on this note that I declare this workshop open, while wishing you a fruitful and rewarding participation.

Thank you.