By Balarabe Oshiafi
The Director-General (DG) of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa, has urged federal public institutions to provide for warranty, downtime and after-sales support in their Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in order to reduce cost incurred by Government in the procurement of information technology products and services.
The DG stated this Wednesday in Abuja at a Consumer Protection Forum tagged, “Review of the Guidelines for Introduction of SLAs in Government Contracts”
According to NITDA boss, the guidelines which are in consonance with sections 6a, 17, and 18(4) of the NITDA act 2007 are to ensure that IT projects in Government are implemented and supported in a sustainable and timely manner; IT services to Government are of consistent good quality and delivered in a way to enable Government to get the best value for investment in technology and digital technology assets and to ensure that Government investments are protected.
“Two weeks ago, NITDA had a very successful International Conference, the digital Nigerian International Conference where the need to pull down barriers which stifle innovation in the digital economy was highly recommended. The Consumer Protection Forum is a platform to identify such barriers”, Inuwa stated.
He recognized and appreciated that since ICT is still relatively new especially in this part of the world, the need to create awareness cannot be over emphasized adding that the Consumer Protection Forum was expedient.
In his own remarks, the lead reviewer of the guideline, Barrister Babatunde Bamigboye said the initiative was a feasible move that would help MDAs to save cost even as they optimise the gains of ICT in public institutions.
“The SLAs mean that Government will not have to be spending money repeatedly on ICT”, Bamigboye said.
