ICT Trainees Decry Zero Budgetary Allocation

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) users in Rivers State, have regretted non- inclusion of the ICT department in this year’s state budget.

This was the view of some respondents to The Tide vox pop conducted recently on the non-inclusion of the ICT department in the N490.32 billion budget.

Chinaka Kamalu, said the budget ought to have accommodated the ICT department due to the high responsibilities it was saddled with.

He noted that the agency should have had a nice budgetary provision that would enable the operators to provide more training for the state’s workforce.

Kamalu recalled how  one privately owned ICT centre in the state was making huge revenue through ICT training, adding that the state could make more money than this private IT centre if only it could allocate more money to the ICT department.

He said the need for a radical ICT development could not be over- emphasised, hence, the reason to make it a better institution.

Also speaking, Mrs Florence Igwela, said that the state government should pay more attention to ICT development by ensuring that it gets proper place in next year’s budget.

She noted that most developed countries in the world depended on ICT even in their agricultural development.

According to her, the days of manual labour were gradually phasing out, adding that it was about time concerned authorities did something meaningful about ICT development.

She hinted that ICT could comfortably replace the oil sector if better grounds were explored given the speed at which it was sweeping across the globe.

Others reasoned that ICT development should be placed above all sectors of the economy as an income spinner.

It would be recalled that ICT department, Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA), Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority (GPHCDA) among others got zero allocation in this year’s state budget which was passed on January 17, 2013.