Galaxy backbone Ltd, working together with the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, has created 42,000 email accounts on a unified email platform for federal public servants.
This move comes as a result of the mandate given to the company by the Ministry which is to facilitate the deployment of information and communication technologies to drive transparency in governance and improve quality and cost effectiveness of public service delivery.
The “switch to .gov.ng” is an initiative of the Ministry designed for the adoption and penetration of the unified email platform for federal civil servants on grade levels 10 to 17 in order to improve internal productivity and quality service delivery to Nigerians.
Minister of Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson said: “collectively adopting this messaging and collaboration platform is an important pillar of our e-government strategy. The platform will improve the speed and efficiency of official communications and provide the means to share, store and gain access to official documents on any computer or mobile device.”
According to her, the email accounts have been created for all officers on GL 10 to 17 in the Federal Civil Service.
The Minister also stated that the unified email platform can be accessed through the www.fedcs.gov.ng. 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 firstname.surname@fedcs.gov.ng .
In addition, special e-mail accounts have been created for Ministers who are not part of the civil service workforce but should be associated with their portfolios. Furthermore, role specific email accounts have been created but they will be extremely limited to avoid a proliferation of email accounts and unnecessary redundancy. The platform is available on mobile devices such as Blackberry, Android and Windows phones and tablets.