NASS pledges increased budgetary allocation for Galaxy Backbone
By Ogaga Ariemu
The Joint National Assembly Committee on ICT and Cybercrime has pledged to increase the budgetary allocation of Galaxy Backbone in upscaling its digital service delivering across the country.
This was disclosed to Nigerian NewsDirect Newspaper when the Committee carried-out a facility tour of the National Shared Services Centre as part of its oversight activities in MDAs for good governance, accountability and transparency.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Yakubu Oseni in his presentation said that Nigeria still lack behind in digital sophistication, digital security and knowhow which are critical to the development agenda.
As the agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria responsible for internet service provision and protection for MDAs, Galaxy Backbone has before it, the big task of ensuring that Nigeria is up to date with the rest of the world in the cyber technology domain, Senator Yakubu Oseni said.
The committee reiterated that the remaining floors of the Data-center be completed and equipped; Data Centre shaver to be build in the six geopolitical zones of the Nation; More tech and operations professionals need to come on board to manage the operations; more metro and intercity Fibre operations have to be rolled out to improve internet and digital experience; more Federal and State Ministries, Departments and Agencies have to get on the Galaxy Backbone network to improve their services to the nation and research, development and innovation have to be deepened to ensure that the digital evolution journey is consistently met with the changes going on globally and locally.
The Committee commended the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami for his passionate and consistent in leading the Digital transformation vision of the Ministry and also applaud the Managing Director of Galaxy Backbone Limited for his creative administrative prowess and commitment and bringing great minds and team together to ensure Galaxy Backbone Ltd continues to deliver on its mandate and puts in the hand work to ensure that quality of service is improved across board.
In his opening remark, the Managing Director of Galaxy Backbone, Prof Abubakar narrated the historical background of Galaxy Backbone and some of the major challenges facing the company which include inadequate funding, bureaucracy, internal internet security among other.
While responding to questions from the Committee on cyber security, the Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone assured that agency has multiple security systems to safeguard it database.
He also noted that the agency will harness the potentials of solar power integration to improve the quality of services.
Similarly regarding Research and Development, he said the Galaxy Backbone has reorganised its agency organogram to smoothly achieve the digital economy policy drive of the federal government.
