To fully realise its operational mandate, the Galaxy Backbone Limited is strengthening the partnership between it and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) and Surveyor General of the Federation.
Galaxy Backbone was established by the Federal Government of Nigeria to operate a nationwide Internet Protocol IP-based network for providing a common platform for connectivity and other infrastructure services for all Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Currently under the Federal Ministry of Communication, Galaxy Backbone mandate include: proving
shared ICT infrastructure, applications and services to all Federal Government MDAs and institutions, and building as well as operating a single nation-wide IP broadband network to provide network services to those MDAs and institutions.
The agency also deploys and maintains all national database management systems and transversal applications in government, such as government wide messaging and collaboration, federal public service personnel and payroll system, government gateway and national portal.
Galaxy Backbone sets standards and guidelines for the support of government MDAs in the acquisition and acceptable usage of ICT infrastructure, applications and services across different agencies and government institutions.
Furthermore, it provides Wide Area Networks(WAN) and Metropolitan Area Networks(MAN) to connect all government entities; technical support to the Ministry of Communication Technology for end to end Quality Assurance of ICT projects and capacity building for ICT professionals in government.
In executing these core mandates, Galaxy Backbone Limited partners the Federal Government agencies and in doing this, the institution last
week had engagements with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and Surveyor General of the Federation.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Galaxy Backbone Limited, Prof Muhammad Bello Abubakar had paid a congratulatory courtesy visit on the recently appointed Accountant General of the Federation, Dr Oluwatoyin Sakirat.
Prof Abubakar who was joined on the visit by some of GBB’s Management team, explored areas of collaboration, enhancing efficiency and business growth with the Accountant General.
After fruitful deliberations, both agencies and their heads reached a resolution of mutual collaboration aimed at realising the Federal Government’s vision implemented by GBB.
This is not the first time, the Prof Abubakar-led GBB management and Office of the Accountant General is having collaborative meeting as they had an interface during the tenure of the former AGF, Ahmed Idris.
At one of such interaction when the former Accountant General played host to the GBB boss who paid him a courtesy call, he charged Galaxy Backbone to make its communication facilities function optimally.
Idris had tasked the agency on always ensuring that its facilities work maximally to guarantee maximum value for the money invested in them and services.
He stated that the OAGF would explore areas of partnership with Galaxy Backbone for the mutual benefit of both agencies.
The then AGF maintained that “with the current global situation, these communication facilities are imperative for efficient running of government offices. Galaxy Backbone should make all effort to ensure that these facilities function optimally.”
The Galaxy Backbone CEO had explained that the visit of his team to the OAGF was in furtherance of the agency’s policy to periodically interact with its clients to resolve issues regarding its facilities and services.
Abubakar equally solicited the support and patronage of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation. It is for this same reason that he led the GBB management team on a courtesy call on the new AGF, Sakirat.
On the other hand, Galaxy Backbone Limited MD/CEO Prof. Abubakar and his Management team also received the Surveryor General of the Federation, Surv. Adebomehin A. Adeyemi and his entourage on a courtesy visit.
The Office of the Surveyor General and GBB have had a long standing relationship which culminated into the Federal Government technology and communication providing high speed and secure connectivity services to the agency.
It was resolved that with its Cloud and Business Continuity services fully in place, the Surveyor General’s Office will be exploring GBB’S platform in taking their services to the Cloud.
Cloud refers to servers that are accessed over the Internet, and the software and databases that run on those servers.
The Surveyor General and his team, also took some time to tour GBB’s Tier III Datacentre and Network Operations Centre.
The whole engagement was to strengthen both organisations’ partnership in deepen digital services.
The latest interaction came barely a month after an ICT delegation from the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation, took a tour of Galaxy Backbone Digital Services Infrastructure to assess the state of the art technology at the complex.
An official of Galaxy Backbone had told the delegation that the government technology enterprise believe in providing infrastructure services that are secure and effective in solving ICT challenges of organisations.
“Galaxy Backbone is the information technology and shared services provider of the Federal Government of Nigeria. It is over a decade since its inception. During these past years, technology has changed significantly across Nigeria and the world.
“Being part of a global community in which technology changes almost at the speed of light, and considering that Galaxy Backbone plays a key role in the development and deployment of technology initiatives and services in government, we had to evolve with the changing trends in technology which has also led the Nigerian government to develop a master plan for e-Government.
“The overall purpose of this agenda, being to, ‘strengthen the transparency, the efficiency and quality of public administration service in Nigeria,” the official had stated.
