The development has made the environment conducive for civil servants who in the past hardly stay in their offices to conduct government business
By Austin Angwe, Makurdi
Benue State Government has disclosed that its has concluded plans to digitize the third tier of government by placing the system on a global map in order to ease business transaction at that level.
Auditor General for Local Governments of Benue State, Dr. Gberindyer Abraham who made the disclosure in an interview with our correspondent, yesterday, in Makurdi, lamented that local government areas in the state had missed a lot of opportunities both nationally and internationally as a result of lack of comprehensive database to provide information on their activities, expressing optimism that the move would attract benefits to the system.
Dr. Gberindyer expressed displeasure that local government management from the state in the past has not operated in line with global best practices, revealing that the present administration intends to hook-up office of the Auditor General for Local Government on the internet so that people across the globe wishing to transact business with local councils would have access to audited reports of all the 23 Local Government Councils and other necessary information for the purpose of transparency and accountability so that in any part of the world people could browse to have information.
He lamented that no such information about the office could be found beyond the state because of its manual operations before his assumption of office also revealed that the Governor Hyacinth Alia administration in addition, plans to establish a database to have knowledge about the exact number of staff on the payroll of the 23 Local Government Areas of the state, including those from Local Government Primary Healthcare and Education Boards to assist Government in planning for their welfare and process retirement benefits.
Dr. Gberindyer who also gave the present administration a path on the back for renovating the state secretariat, acknowledged that the development has made the environment conducive for civil servants who in the past hardly stay in their offices to conduct government business, adding that this has reduced truancy among staff thereby increasing productivity.
He also acknowledged the giant strides of the Alia administration in the area of infrastructural development particularly the construction of both township and rural roads across the state, provision of streetlights in major towns of the state among other achievements, urging Benue people to remain firm in their support for the Alia administration for him to consolidate beyond 2027 in order to continue the good works.