INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Being a paper presented at the retreat for Political Office holders in Delta State By James O. Emadoye 

INTRODUCTION

We are in the age of Technology and it has been said times without number that any person or group of persons who do not recognize this fact will lag behind. Information Technology (IT) has been the singular focus of technology in the past five years or so and as we entered into the wonder years of the new millennium, there isn't a more exciting experience in our lives that IT

WHAT IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY?

Simply put, Information Technology is the process of gathering, arranging, storing, manipulating in various ways to become useful (information) and generating various combination of the data as information for day to day use in our personal lives, in business as strategic information for decision making or in government.

This could be at home when we need to gather information about our family, in the business environment where we require information for the management of human, machine and material resources, in Government for the management of State affairs, in education where information is the basis of learning, in the military where complex information is required for strategy formulation and for warfare. Information Technology therefore is so important that it must form part of every organisation's budget. And a continuous effort must be in place to ensure that the investment on IT, which is sometimes very high, is not wasted. Effort must be made to ensure that maximum benefit is derived from IT investment.

THE DRIVING FORCE OF IT

It is very important for people to understand the various component of IT in other to understand the complexity in its enthronement and deployment in various operations.

The driving force behind IT is the computer. The. computer is simply an electronic device, which was introduced, in the early 1940s to assist people in numerical computations. This objective forms the basis of the design of the computer system. Today however, the computer has become so indispensable that it is seen as a machine with wizardry ability.

The truth is that the computer is just an electronic device like your domestic video machine with input area were pieces of data can be fed in, a memory where such data can be temporarily stored, a processing station where basic operation such as arithmetic and logic operations could be carried out and an output area where results or fed in data can be viewed or printed out for management use. There are several types of computers, but the main interest as far as business and Government organization is concern, is the digital computer.

The computer hardware is however useless just as your video equipment is, without your favourite films. For the computer, it requires Software to work. Software are step-by-step instructions that has been carefully prepared in a language that the computer understand. There are also several types of software. They are however mainly classified into three types namely Systems Software, Application Software and Utilities.

COMPONENT PARTS OF IT

Information Technology has become a major and integral part of the endeavour of man. It is necessary therefore to review the various components so that executives could become familiar with IT decision making. It is also important so that people are aware of the various career paths in the profession.

IT could be subdivided into three main fields of specialization, namely:

Each of this area is a complete field of endeavour with people specializing in them. It follows therefore, that when taking the decision on computerization of your ministry or department, consideration must be given to each of this area viz-a-viz the requirement of your operations.

HARDWARE

This is the physical equipment usually consisting of the computer itself and several other peripherals such as:

SOFTWARE

This is the brain and the blood that runs the computer without which the computer will be useless. The application software should be the main focus. This is dealt with below under government likely applications.

COMMUNICATION AND INFRASTRUCTURES

This has to do with the various add ons that enables the computer to talk with each other and provide a nation wide network of computers that are connected to each other. Or a world wide web of computers that are connected together to give what is today known as the (WWW) THE INTERNET. Infrastructure could be provided in several different ways from a network of two computers, to a whole Complex as large as the Delta Steel Company, to a wide area network covering states and countries.

A LOOK AT GOVERNMENT APPLICATIONS

There are several applications that are useful to a developing state like the Delta State. Needless to say that effective and efficient computer applications are unavoidable at this time of rapid economic development of the State where well over N2 billion naira is spent on a monthly basis for capital projects. A number of applications are of immense benefit to various ministries and extra-ministerial departments. Some of these applications are as follows:

  1. Desktop Applications such as word processing, spreadsheet etc. which most ministries already have.
  2. Time, process and business critical application - these are the core business applications. They require detailed development time, planning and systematic implementation. Some could take well over four years to perfect. Examples here are:

The Internet- This as an application should be provided for every government worker. It provides the basis for learning and communication and exchanges of idea with people worldwide.

Some example of application systems above

1. GIS Application

This is a GIS application screen showing information on age and population distribution by census tract.

Below is another GIS screen showing information on site analysis with the population of each site, income and household.

2. Budget Application

Below is a screen showing the appropriation for capital expenditure. This screen can be made available on the computer system where users will have view only access.

3. Education Database

A database could be built to capture information on all school age students of Delta State. Such a system will capture information on candidates and monitor the their progress from Primary School to higher schools thereby making it easy to pay bursary against qualified candidates in the State's own database.

4. Project Control Below is a graph showing the proportion in percentages, of a particular project between two communities.

The list is endless as there is a solution for every office and every business environment. It will be impossible to discuss each of these applications above in detail as each could take a whole day lecture. For the purpose of this retreat however, I have decided to discuss one of the application above for the benefit of all participants. The selected application is THE STATE PROJECT CONTROL AND MONITORING SYSTEM.

THE URGENT NEED FOR A FULLY COMPUTERISED STATE PROJECT CONTROL AND MONITORING SYSTEM

PREAMBLE:

Rapid, relevant, well-coordinated, sustainable development has, in the past, eluded the state owing to:

  1. . Lack of thorough forward planning
  2. Plan indiscipline
  3. Lack of dynamic leadership
  4. Lack of dedicated executive capacity
  5. Lack of adequate financial resources
  6. Dishonest contractors
  7. Lack of an effective monitoring and operations control system, among other militating factors.

Today, however. Delta State is blessed with:

But all these advantages could translate to rushed, confused, uncoordinated, irrelevant, wasteful development if careful, forward planning, faithful, disciplined and well coordinated execution of projects and strict monitoring of both financial releases and actual physical realizations, dp not underscore the development efforts of the State as a whole.

STATE PROJECT CONTROL CENTER (SPCC)

A State Project Control centre under the Executive Governors office or the Ministry of finance is required. The primary objective of the SPCC is to ensure that the appropriate authorities are kept constantly informed of and regularly kept in touch with the state of progress and the extent to which planned objectives are being accomplished. The computer database to be provided at the Centre will have software resources for monitoring the progress of all projects being undertaken by all executing ministries. From time to time information on projects and project completion stages would be made available to the Executive Governor and /or other project monitoring commissioner for on the spot visit to project sites. Information generated from the computer system, which must have been provided by the executing ministries, will then be compared with actual job verifiable at site.

In this way, all executing ministries will be on their toes to ensure that all and sundry and generations yet unborn enjoy the benefit of the Ibori administration.

A system of this nature means that some rules must be adhered to:

  1. . All projects must conform to the approved budget and/or the rolling plan before they can be cleared. Exceptions to this rule must be few and far between and must be backed by cogent and compelling reasons.
  2. Secondly, all Ministries and Government Agencies must participate in a progress reporting system, in which they are obliged to send a monthly progress report to the SPCC (STATE PROJECT CONTROL CENTER) on standard forms to be designed.
  3. Thirdly, there has to be a monthly meeting of all reporting ministries and agencies, to consider and review the reports sent in. Ideally Commissioners and/or Heads of Departments should attend these meetings at which, in addition to progress reports, general problems and constraints inhibiting the rapid and orderly implementation of the projects should be discussed and resolved.
  4. His Excellency the Governor will have a direct link to the system for the purpose of viewing progress of projects and showing projects in each community to representatives of the communities when necessary.
  5. The system will provide details of project in each community or proportion of the project that is directly attributable to each community.
  6. Community heads and community information will be kept in a database of community for reference purposes.

E-GOVERNMENT

A new way of life started at the end of the last century, this way of life is popularly known as the e-life. Virtually every thing now have the prefix e-; we are everyday being confronted with e-commerce, e-banking, e-training, e-homes, e-offices, e-business and so on. This is another list that is endless. E-Govemment therefore should not be anything new. It will be running the Government on the electronic media. E-Govemment will involve putting all government business on the net. That means that:

This is the idea of the long awaited paperless office or running businesses without offices. You can do all transactions in the comfort of your bedroom. The only conditions however, for a successful e-life, is a total improvement of infrastructures especially COMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURE AND ELECTRIC POWER GENERATION INFRASTRUCTURE.

TRAINING AND PROVIDING JOB OPPORTUNITY FOR THE RESTIVE YOUTH THROUGH IT

IT is the singular profession with the capabilities of providing employment for unlimited number of people in today's labour market. The field has several entrances for experts and highly skilled professional, reasonable skill people, unskilled and lowly educated people, disable people and so on. A number of Africa countries have commenced huge investment in the training of youth in IT.

It is my belief that the restive youth of the State could turn a new leaf if they are provided with some training and also provided with opportunity to earn a living of their own. This method has been attempted by Lagos State with unbelievable success story. A computer village should be created where youths will be trained in various aspect of computing and other endevour of life. This might just turn out to be one of the magic solutions to the problem.

CONCLUSION

This paper has been prepared with less than a days notice. There is a lot for everybody to learn on the topic Information Technology. Learning is of course a going concern business. A lot of Investment no doubt must have been made in the direction of IT by the State in the Last two years. You are in the best position to appraise the effectiveness and relevance of such investment. However, I must acknowledge the facts that Delta State is miles ahead of every other State of the Federation in this respect. There is a great need to consolidate that position; to do this effectively, each ministry must take investment in this area seriously. They must plan for the acquisition of IT and approach it cautiously always considering the software/ or applications first before deciding on any investment. As an assignment, Honourable Commissioners that have invested in IT in the past two years should visit the offices where IT equipment were provided and see their presentation and uses. The experience will be good for consolidating our gains for the future. Thank you, your Excellency, Ladies and gentlemen for this opportunity to share experience with such a distinguished audience. God Bless you all. Amen. .