No doubt, the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) can be said to be the greatest hit in the information technology ‘disruptions’ that came into the country from 2001 in the name of GSM. Otherwise, the coming of GSM frustrated letter writing in Nigeria, thus leading to the irrelevant status of the NIPOST.
But as a way of rescue, considering its branch network strength, government has thought wise to unbundle the agency into viable ventures that can be driven by the private sector relying on relevant laws after all.
The Minister of Communications Technology, Barr. Adebayo Shittu opened up on the government’s plan for the NIPOST while delivering his Keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 4th National Council on Communications Technology (NCCT)summit in Kaduna
He said “We have sustained focus on modernizing NIPOST for greater contribution to ICT development”.
“This effect includes the transformation of NIPOST such that it would soon have NIPOST Banking and Insurance e Services, NIPOST Property and Development Company, NIPOST Transport and Logistics Services, NIPOST e-Commerce Services and so on.
He said apart from the foregoing, we have worked assiduously on setting the proper policy and strategic environment for the development of ICT in the country.
According to him, “Going forward, Government will expand its investments in ICT infrastructure to extend connectivity to unserved and underserved areas. In this regard, attention will be paid to the issue of multiple taxation of ICT infrastructure”.
“Also we are working to have ICT infrastructure designated as Critical National Infrastructure. Efforts are being made to procure two additional communication satellites to complement the existing NigComSat as a means of reaching areas that cannot easily be covered by terrestrial fiber.
“We are also working to make more investments in building the capacity and harnessing the talents of our youth. In particular we are increasing Accelerators and Incubator programmes as a means of building and harnessing the capacity of our increasingly ICT savvy youth population. “Our game plan is to deploy our indigenous ICT for national development. We will work to ensure that tech start-ups are not burdened with high take-off costs and killer interest rates that they currently suffer from. We believe that ICT companies should benefit from government incentives where first entrants can get pioneer status which would lead to an unprecedented boom in the sector.
Implementation of the e-government Masterplan will be pursued with vigour with a lot of emphasis on e-government applications that will help solve many of the country’s existing socio-economic challenges.
