FG launches N64m upgraded website

The Federal Government has launched an upgraded website, www.osgf.gov.ng, which aims at bringing governance and transparency closer to the people. The Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Gida Mustapha, at the formal launch of the website in his office Monday in Abuja, said that the upgraded website will enable members of the public request […]

The Federal Government has launched an upgraded website, www.osgf.gov.ng, which aims at bringing governance and transparency closer to the people.

The Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Gida Mustapha, at the formal launch of the website in his office Monday in Abuja, said that the upgraded website will enable members of the public request for information from Government, submit an idea to Government, lodge complaints to government; respond to Government; report issues to Government; and give compliments to Government among others.

He said that the project cost about N64m, which includes procurement of laptops, servers, and training among others.

“A major achievement in this project is the revamped e-Participation platform for citizen participation and engagement in governance which has been integrated with the website. This is to drive the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative. It would involve other MDAs as the responding Agencies while the OSGF will be the Coordinating Unit.

“Some of the very rich resources available on the website include Circulars, FEC Approved Policies since 2015 to March 2018, International Organizations to which Nigeria belongs, Agreements, MOUs and Treaties between Nigeria and other countries, Political Office Holders, Status of FEC, approved Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) projects, among others,” Mustapha said.

He said that it became necessary to upgrade the old OSGF website which did not reflect the status of the OSGF and was developed with old technology, had limited security features which made the website prone to hackers.

The Permanent Secretary, General Services Office (GSO), OSGF, Mr Olusegun Adekunle, said the old website had media files such as video clips hosted on external server which is contrary to Government policies.

“The website did not comply with the standards of operationalization of Executive Order 001. There is the need to train and retrain staff in this area, and There also the need for acquisition and installation of computer hardware for the office,” he said.

Mustapha said the upgraded website has three major components of redesign and upgrade of OSGF website using newer technology platforms (Laravel and October CMS), Capacity development of Web Development Team (Webmasters), Web Content Providers for the Acquisition and installation of computer hardware.

He said while the Galaxy Backbone provided a Virtual Private Server (VPS) at no cost for hosting the website as against the shared platform initially provided for the old website, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is responsible gofer the contents.