The Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer, National Bureau of Statistics, Mr Adeyemi Adeniran, has reiterated Federal Government’s commitment toward providing an enabling environment for digital economy to thrive.
Adeniran said this during the 2023 National Budget Roundtable and Panel Discussion organised by the Centre for Economic Policy and Development Research (CEPDeR), Covenant University, Ota, Ogun, yesterday.
He was represented by Mustapha Daramola, Director of Statistics, office of the Statistician-General of the Federation.
Our correspondent reports that the roundtable discussion was tagged: “National Budgeting and Digitalisation for Sustainable Development in Africa; The Nigerian Experience.”
Our correspondent also reports that the event was hosted by Covenant University in collaboration with University of Warwick, United Kingdom.
The Statistician-General said the Federal Government was working assiduously to provide a solid infrastructure for digital economy, as this was germane to solving some of the societal problems, which included unemployment, debts and poverty.
Adeniran, also a keynote speaker, said the national budget roundtable had great relevance to Nigeria, particularly at this crucial time when the economy was severely challenged, not only in Nigeria but globally.
“The country is facing significant fiscal macroeconomic challenges as revenues are slim with lower production, while expenditures are relatively increasing with huge fuel subsidies and an enormous burden of management of government businesses,” he said.
Adeniran said in recent times, digital technologies had been introduced in the public space to aid the management of public resources.
According to him, digital technologies have lowered the costs of doing government business and enhanced the speed, targeting and reliability of the delivery of government services.
“Digitalisation of government payments also has lowered administration costs, reduced opportunities for fraud, improved the targeting of welfare programmes and lowered the waiting time for recipients,” the Statistician-General said.
He emphasised that digitalisation of the budgeting processes formed a better part of the conversation of budgeting to support sustainable and inclusive public service delivery.
A second keynote speaker, Dr Williams Nwankwo, said the Federal Government’s efforts to leverage digital technology had resulted in significant improvement in transparency, accountability and efficiency in public financial management.
Nwankwo, represented by Mr Samuel Okoye, Director of ICT, Ministry of Communication and Digital economy, stressed the need for African countries to embrace digitalisation as a crucial tool for achieving sustainable development.
He listed some of the the digital tools used by the Federal Government to improve transparency and accountability to include Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) and Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), among others.
Academic Director for Africa, University of Warwick, Mr Franklyn Lisk, urged Nigeria and other African countries to embrace a robust digital platform supported by private sector to drive the digital economy.
Lisk stressed the need to strengthen the regulatory framework to boost digital economy so that African countries would not be cut off in this global space in terms of resources and capacity.
The Vice-Chancellor of Covenant University, Prof Abiodun Adebayo, said there was the need to enhance Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and budgeting infrastructure towards improving Digital Quality of Life index, both from government and entrepreneurial perspectives for the betterment of the people.
Adebayo said the COVID-19 crisis had shown the importance of digital opportunities and for every economy to have fully remote operational capacity.