The Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have disclosed their plans to spend a combined sum of N8.7 billion on software alone this year.
According to these agencies, this spending is captured in the government-owned enterprises (GOEs) budget for 2024 released by the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
Specifically, NDIC leads all other agencies of the government in terms of money allocated for software this year. The Corporation is to spend N5.2 billion on this item, according to the budget plan. FIRS is also planning to acquire software with the sum of N3.5 billion and it is the second-biggest spender among the GOEs.
Also top among the biggest spenders on software this year is the Nigeria Immigration Service(NIS), which plans to acquire the software with N874.5 million. The Service, which is in charge of the production of the Nigerian International Passport, is planning to upgrade its automated platform for passport acquisition to enable Nigerians to complete the entire process online without visiting its offices for capturing.
Similarly, the National Pension Commission (NPC), as well as the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), have also budgeted N384 million and N255 million respectively for software acquisition this year.
However, stakeholders in the Nigerian ICT industry has expressed concerns over annual budget for software
by Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the government without commensurate improvement in their services to the people.
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) noted that billions of naira are being pushed by MDAs through IT projects because they are too technical to be scrutinized by the National Assembly during the budget defense.
Also, a former President of the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), Mr. James Emadoye, said:
“Nigerians are very deceiving people. Sometimes, when you read memos written to justify the acquisition of software, you may not even understand it if you don’t have the benefit of hindsight. A memo for the acquisition of software that many companies have in Nigeria will be written and described as special software for one engineering process to convince those who are monitoring them that they need to import it.”
