The federal government through the ministry of communication technology has created 42,000 official email accounts that end with .gov.ng for all officers on GL 10 to 17 in the federal civil service as part of effort to discourage the use of foreign emails accounts like Yahoo mail, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.
The Minister of Communication Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson at the weekend while presenting the ‘Switch to .gov.ng’ initiative to the Head of Service, Mr. Danladi Kifasi said the new email system is a simple but very important tool for the take- off of the official electronic communication platform, noting that it would foster the adoption and penetration of the unified email platform for the federal civil service.
Collectively adopting the messaging and collaboration platform is an important pillar of the ministry’s e-government strategy. The platform will improve the speed and efficiency of official communications and provide the means for civil servants to share, store and gain access to official documents anytime, anywhere and on any computer or mobile device.
Other features of the platform include the ability to send confidential (encrypted) email, schedule meetings on line, assign and track staff and colleagues on official tasks and assignments, send circulars service-wide at the touch of a button amongst others. The minister charged civil servants to make effective use of the unified email, messaging and collaboration platform of the federal government.
Johnson reiterated that the initiative will enhance internal productivity and quality service delivery to all citizens, added that as the infrastructure and the capacity of the platform is expanded, email accounts for federal civil servants on GL09 and below will be created.
The platform can be accessed through the www.fedcs.gov.ng, a simple easy to navigate portal to enable users activate their email accounts. The portal will also eventually serve as the central information portal or Intranet for Government, offering authorized and secure access to online services documents and resources. Also a standard naming convention has been adopted in the creation of email accounts for all civil servants [email protected]).
It is available on mobile devices such as BB, Android and Windows phones and tablets. The unified platform will promote the country code Top Level Domain ccTLD (.ng) which is the Nigeria unique identity on the Cyberspace just as (.uk), (.fr), (.za), (.gh), (.ke), etc. It will also further improve Nigeria Image and Ratings on the UN e-Governance Development Index (EGDI).
Head of the Nigerian Civil Service, Mr Danladi Kifasi urged all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal government to key into ICT tools in attaining a more efficient, effective and accessible service, to adopt the switch to .gov.ng platform and also directed all permanent secretaries to launch Switch to .gov.ng platform in their respective ministries so that officers could effectively and efficiently utilize the resource.