Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state, has raised the alarm about the high incidence of waste in government, particularly at the federal level, saying that the country will be in deeper difficulty unless intentional actions are taken to reduce waste.
He also highlighted the benefits of his administration’s e-governance system while advocating for the digitization of government operations at all levels of government in the country to increase transparency and save costs.
According to his Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki spoke as a panelist during a session on “Reinventing Government: Digitalization of Public Institutions” at the 29th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja yesterday.
“We need to reinvent governance,” declared the governor of Edo. The government cannot be reinvented until its systems are digitalized and opened up. We have no choice. We must be efficient.
“In order to support production, we must be efficient.” In particular, at the federal level. The waste is excessive, and unless we change, we will face serious problems. In fact, we are already in difficulty, and if nothing changes, we will be even more so.”
While discussing his Edo e-governance experience at the occasion, Obaseki stated that the digitalization of government needs the political will and commitment of political leaders due to civil servant reluctance.
He emphasized that even when a political leader had a well-thought-out and noble program, convincing civil officials to adopt it was difficult, and he had to persist in his case.
The governor added that prior to the digitalization exercise in Edo state, civil servants, public office holders, and the executive functioned in silos, but that this has now changed.
