Chima Oriaku, the commissioner for science and technology, has expressed Governor Alex Otti-led government’s commitment to fully digitalising Abia’s civil service by March 2024.

Mr Oriaku stated this in Umuahia during the sensitisation and training organised by Xerox Nigeria Limited for public servants in Abia on Wednesday.

According to him, the programme is about automating the entire state government workflow into a digitalised format for easy management for the workers.

He said past governments in Abia had kept files in paper and analogue formats, thus making them prone to losses and destruction by weather and other forces of nature.

Mr Oriaku said digitalising and digitising the system would ease access to the government work environment, files, and project plans, making work easier for staff.

“We should have a centralised data management system so that at any time, at the punch of a button, by a government official, you will access data that you can work with.

“That is why we are in this partnership with Xerox Nigeria Limited to give us their support in that plan,” he said.

Femi Abidoye, Xerox Nigeria Limited general manager (marketing), said that the partnership with the state government was the governor’s idea, owing to his desire for quality service delivery for Abia.

The commissioner said the purpose of the partnership was to make the workforce more efficient and increase output.

Mr Abidoye said, “The objective is to make Abia state workers work smarter and to deliver on state objectives. To simplify work processes, procedures and work environment, and to move from the analogue system to the digital system era where there is accountability, reliability, productivity and efficiency at the end of the day.

“We are partnering the Abia Ministry of Science and Technology to ensure there is cost control and to correct the record of everybody so that no data is lost at the end of the day. That is of uttermost importance.” 

(NAN)