Kaduna state was ranked the most e-Governance compliant of the 36 states of the federation. The report was released by the Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies, CIAPS in Lagos. The research report is based on 10 objective criteria which according to the centre met international consideration and best practice and could be applied to any city in the world. The centre director, Prof Anthony Kila said during the press conference that it was important, the government of the day interface with the citizenry for effective service delivery and one of the most cogent means was through e-governance.
He listed some of the criteria deployed for the assessment to include, Updated (is the website is updated?), Interactivity (is the site interactive with the citizen?), Empowerment/Opportunities (does the site have contents that offer opportunities and that empower the citizenry?), Policy Information (is information on policy direction available on the site?), Relevance of Contents (are the contents relevant?), Updates (are the contents regularly updated?), User friendly (is the site easy to use and navigate?), Directory (does the site offers links and contacts for ease of interaction and communication?), Accountability (is the site reporting the activities of the state showing projects embarked upon at different level of execution and completion?) and Call-to-Action (are the citizen participatory and responsive to governance?).
The report which categorized the states into three performance index based on a score range of 1 – 10 on each criterion shows the top 10 states that are e-governance compliance, 10 states that are average and bottom states that are poor in e-governance. The report also revealed 6 states that do not own any functional website. The research was carried out by a team of 15 members drawn from the Media and Journalism and Digital Management departments of CIAPS.
Since the purpose of governance is to act on behalf of the people, Professor Kila called for the government to pay more attention to the digital interface of governance with the citizen for enhanced service delivery. He announced that the report would be reviewed annually.
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