Lagos, Microsoft seal e-government deal

By Kokumo Goodie, Lagos, Nigeria
Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) of Lagos State has signed an agreement with technology giant Microsoft, on ICTs to drive service delivery to the people of the state.
The governor led a delegation to the Redmond, Washington headquarters of the firm with Lagos State Microsoft team. He said the agreement encompasses an e- governance platform to deliver service to the citizens of Lagos.
According to him, the agreement is anchored on four cardinal programmes which are:  implementation of a citizen relationship management platform leveraging on the existing call centre infrastructure; provision of an IT infrastructure to support Lagos State’s health insurance initiative; IT skills development and affordable mobile devices; and being a premier partner under the Microsoft 4Africa initiative, which is centred on entrepreneur support.
Fashola also said that as part of the agreement, the state has secured the commitment of Microsoft to help train 100 Microsoft certified applications support personnel, who will not only support the Lagos State Government  but also other states in Nigeria.
Fashola said the e-governance solution will provide a platform for delivering services to the citizens of the state using smart phones and mobile devices while enabling the adminstration to be able to monitor the performance of each Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA) in the discharge of services. It will also assist the government to monitor all ongoing projects, especially those around the medium term budgetary objectives of Power, Agriculture, Transportation and Housing (PATH).
The governor said the platform will also be used to answer queries from citizens regarding the state services, initiate transactions and eventually, offer government services on-line, adding that it constitutes another mode of communication without traveling to the secretariat. These initiatives are expected to commence April next year.
He said the health solutions will focus on delivering cloud-based solutions that will assist pregnant mothers and patients at the 57 primary care facilities which are being upgraded under the health care initiative of the state.
The cloud serve will also include a Private Cloud for Lagos State based on Microsoft technology. The technology is expected to support the state government in its disaster recovery strategy, enhance the existing e-Health platform, integrate existing silos of databases that house important information such as health, education and budgetary data.
Accompanied on the trip by the Commissioner for Science and Technology, Biyi Mabadeje, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Science and Technology, Nike Animashaun and the Director General, Financial Management Bureau, Ahmed Mustaphan, the governor expressed the readiness of the state to deliver on the commitments agreed to under the terms of the agreement. He said the availability of IT solutions especially in service delivery, would further enhance the dividends of democracy to the citizen thus deepening their resolve to embrace it as the best form of government after long years of military rule
He said ICT is a platform that any serious government committed to service delivery has to embrace, stressing that having a worthwhile partner in Microsoft, the state will certainly meet all its challenges.
Microsoft GM Worldwide, Jeff Fraizer who signed on behalf of Microsoft expressed the readiness of the firm to help finance the implementation of a health IT support infrastructure for the state’s existing community health insurance programme which can then be leveraged upon to support the expected rollout of the state social health insurance programme.