02/04/2024
HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE.
Evaluating how Anambra State Government, has used ICT to promote development & improve access to Government services.
By Mr. Arthur Ezechukwu
INTRODUCTION
Few days ago, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo the former Governorhip candidate in Anambra State, made a clarion call to Ndi Anambra, to assess the performance of the adminstration of H.E Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo and hold the government accountable for its policies and programs. Which is why this expose, is a critical assessment of the Government’s policies and programs, particularly on ICT, an area which the Governor earmarked, to be an integral part of his administration.
Governor Soludo, highlighted that his Administration would harness the benefits of ICT in:
1. Making government processes efficient and effective.
2. Making access to government services easy.
3. Ensuring transparency in government processes, amongst other benefits.
Prior to the adoption of ICT driven operational frameworks, the inefficiencies of Government institutions and programs were often overlooked because of governments' outlook, as a non-profit and socially inclined organisation.
Today, Information Technology is driving innovation by simplifying complicated processes and systems, while eliminating barriers, bottlenecks and inefficiency. The establishment of the Anambra State ICT Agency in 2019, was a welcome development it was believed to be set up Anambra needed, to reaching a SMART status. It was considered a giant stride towards achieving the digital Anambra, through E - Government systems and policies.
The agency's primary role was to incubate and develop tech driven strategies for the State Government and her various MDAs (Ministries, Departmens and Agencies), and also create blueprints for transitioning Anambra into a SMART state. In the recent past, the ICT Agency has been a cynosure for other states, as they observed and took cues from the the Anambra model. This is why I will narrow down my assessment in this piece, to the evaluation and analysis of the performance and impact of the Anambra State ICT Agency, in achieving the goals for which it was established, with special spotlight on the positive and negative approach of the administrative model operated by the current leadership.
A LEADERSHIP OF MISPLACED PRIORITIES
Government MDA’s have overlapping areas of operation often caused by the scramble to expand their scope of work, as a way of expanding their budgetary allocations. This was the case of the Anambra State ICT Agency, as it sought to transform from a policy maker and regulator, to an executor.
Prior to the establishment of the Anambra State ICT Agency, most MDA’s had developed a form of Management Information System (MIS), to facilitate their operation and aid effective decision making. It is important to note that some of these systems have been operational and effective for over a decade, before the Anambra ICT Agency forced the MDA’s to discontinue these functional and effective systems, simply because they needed to expand their budgetary allocations.
The agency over reached and was brewing a recipe for disaster when it assumed a new role as the state Government's sole ICT service provider. With the volume of work required, trying to meet up with the tech demands of the various MDA’s, will definitely stretch the resources of the agency to a breaking point. Not forgetting the fact that in the ICT, specialization and experience is key for efficient delivery, a quality that is highly dependent on man power, which the agency obviously lacks.
The Agency attempting to develop ICT solutions for MDA’s whose activities they do not have vast experience in, would most likely see them deploying non-functional or half-baked solutions that slow down operations and performance.
A case study, is the Agency's half baked take-over of the ICT structure serving the state's Educational System. With no experience or proper planning, the agency took down the existing managment portals of the Ministry of Education, Post Primary Schools Services Commission and Universal Basic Education Board and deployed inefficient and inferior versions of the portal. Their failures started from their inability to develop a simple teachers' recruitment portal, which is to effectively and efficiently manage the teacher's recruitment process. Their lack of depth was highlighted by the failure to capture the key areas needed, in order to shortlist only persons with the right qualifications for the positions advertised, during the teacher’s recruitment exercise. They were unable to limit the applications to those with the requisite qualifications, which saw the agency waste Valuable Government resources on testing individuals who did not fit the requirements and therefore, could not be recruited. An outcome which was totally avoidable, had the agency allowed the already engaged contractors do their jobs.
Anambra State made headlines and was held in high regards by other states in 2013 when her Post Primary Schools Services Commission (PPSSC) launched the first of its kind ‘Unified Schools Management Portal’ ( www.ppsscanambra.net ) an Education Management Information System (EMIS). This system was to provide the commission with information on how to best allocate its scarce resources, manage teachers and monitor students’ performance for the purpose of maximizing the students' overall learning experience. The portal transitioned the State's schools from manual termly result processing to automated termly results processing, with online access to transcripts and detailed performance analysis for the schools and school boards.
It is important to note, that the ICT Agency, which should naturally understand the importance of data, advised the State Government to unilaterally terminate the contract of the firm managing the PPSSC Portal. This is a portal with over 10 years of student's data, a database that the ICT Agency deemed irrelevant, a clear show of disregard for continuity and important records of the schools and students.
The Agency deployed a replacement portal, www.ppssc.anambrastate.gov.ng and as at the time of writing this article, the Public Post Primary Schools in Anambra State are yet to issue students with First Term Results (a term that ended since December, 2023). Most Schools have resorted to hand written results, reversing over a decade of technological progress made by the state, in the schools system.
Some teachers and parents expressed shock at the government's decision to discontinue such a perfect and efficient process, only to replace it with a non functional one. One parent said she was told that the Portal was discontinued in line with the governor’s free education program. According to her, the Governor should have made proper analysis of the education system before announcing that he would subsidize it to be free, she was of the view that diluting quality because you want to make education free, is worse than having parents pay tuition fees. She was also of the opinion that many parents will gladly pay for the Portal which was operated at the minimal cost of N250 (Two Hundred and Fifty Naira) per child, for each academic term.
At a recent adminstrative retreat, the Governor was visibly upset at the inability of the Commissioner for Education to highlight the impact of the free education program. Let me quite frankly, inform Mr. Governor, that there has been significant migration of students from public schools to Private and Mission Schools, as parents would rather pay for quality than settle for mediocrity because it is free.
A STRUCTURE OF CONFUSION
If you have successfully followed my narrative and factual analysis so far, you will come to the same conclusion as I have, that the idea of housing all the Government's data in the hands of individuals running a purely political office, with no rooted civil service structural backbone, is a total fiasco.
The Agency operates like a private venture with no structure for continuity. Laughable, is the fact that the current MD of the Agency, Mr. Fred Agbata, is merely a graduate of Sociology from Ekiti state University with no background in computer sciences and no core IT background, he is at best, an IT enthusiast. It is worrisome that the agency operates with an assemblage of individuals, I would ratherrefer to as freelancers.
The position of the MD is a political one, and one would expect that there will be a sound structure to maintain stability during transitionary phases. Without the right structural framework, the administrative chaos being created by the current MD of the Agency, would cripple the state. And I must say, that a continued gross mismanagement of the agency, will ultimately lead to unauthorized intrusion and substantial loss of data.
AN ADVOCATE OF WASTE
Like I said, the idea of having an ICT Agency is a good one, but the existence of an ICT agency and the Solution Innovation District (Anambra State Innovation Hub) is something refer to as, 'the joke of the century', a total waste of the State's depleted resources. A careful view of the activities of the two bodies will reveal that they perform one and the same functions. The Solution Innovation Hub could have been easily created as a department of the ICT Agency for the sake of prudence, especially, at this time when the country is going through an economic crunch.
AN EPILEPTIC PERFORMANCE
The overall performance of the Anambra State ICT Agency is poor and far from average. One would expect that by now, the Agency should have crafted an ICT solution for the State's Revenue Collection and Remittance, an area in dire need of strong tech intervention.
By critically looking at its primary function, it is clear that the agency under the current leadership, is in a pond of misplaced priorities, which is why it's performance so far, is best described as epilteptic.
I however, grant the agency the benefit of doubt and challenge it's leadership, to highlight any achievement it has made worthy of the resources allocated to it.
MY FINAL TAKES
In the beginning, I started by out by identifying one of the major difficulties faced by Governments today, and how leveraging technology, helps create balance and efficiency. I narrowed my conversation down to the Anambra State ICT Agency, who's primary purpose is to incubate and develop technology driven strategies for the State Government and her various MDAs.
I showed how that it is a perfect cocktail for disaster, where an Agency which lacks competence, leadership and structural framework, assumes a role, as the sole provider of ICT solutions for the State Government. This was further proven by the agency's decision to unilaterally disband and shutdown already existing and functioning ICT solutions, that the MDAs were working with. I made particular reference to the mess they caused in the education sector. The agency did this, without providing better alternatives, which led to unbearable hardships for the parents and teachers.
The agency is yet to present better alternatives as at the time of writing this article, none of the MDAs has been given a workable ICT structure, and one would have thought that the agency's decision to shutdown the existing solutions, was to show capacity, but clearly, that is not the case.
This is why, in the light of these developments, I implore the Governor to re-evaluate the role of the Agency, and have a roundtable discussion with the previous experts deploying ICT Solutions to its MDAs. The ICT Agency should focus on providing guidelines and standards for any IT solution to be deployed by an MDA.
Anambra belongs to us all, and the success of any Government, is the success of every Anambrarian.
God bless Anambra!
Arthur Ezechukwu is a media & business development consultant, and he writes from Anambra State, Nigeria.
