Nigeria: Presidency Takes Over Galaxy Backbone

President Musa Yar’Adua has directed that Galaxy Backbone PLC be moved from the Ministry of Science and Technology to the Presidency to bring the government-owned infrastructure service provider under the direct supervision of Aso Rock.

Technology Times learnt weekend with the directive, Galaxy Backbone, which hitherto was under the supervision of the Ministry of Science and Technology now comes under the supervision office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe.

Efforts to clarify the new supervisory oversight over the company weekend proved abortive but a senior government source said the decision may be linked to the sensitivity of the critical role the company will play in carriyng government information.

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration had set up Galaxy Backbone to integrate existing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure of government into a national backbone and create a reliable data, voice and video transmission to pipe the infromation of all Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

Only recently, the company said it will save about N302.4 billion annually through provision of free Internet services through a nationwide project under way to install 5000 VSAT (very small aperture terminal) network with nodes distributed in all the local government areas and offer VoIP (voice over internet protocol) services and chat rooms for government offices.

According to information obtained from the company’s website, Galaxy Backbone operates as a commercial entity on a partnership between the Federal Government and Private sector in the ratio of 51 per cent and 49 per cent respec-tively.

“The private sector share is made up of a number of investors while the government share consists of shares for the Federal Government and the Jigawa State Government.

The share allocation to Jigawa State Government is in consideration of the assets and operations of the Jigawa State Government owned Galaxy Information Technology and Telecommunications Limited”, it says.

At formation, the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF) provided about N2 billion ($15 million) to finance the first phase of the company’s activities to enable it execute the folowing mandates:

Build and operate a single nation-wide infrastructure platform to provide network services to all Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs);

Manage all national databases and transversal applications and services for all Federal Government MDAs;

Provide connectivity and internet access to rural and underserved communities and 3rd party customers;

Integrate people, Technology and Best practices to operate a financially independent company;

Meet and sustain service quality standards as contained in Service Level Agreements

Government expects that the national backbone project under way by the company will among others harmonise and aggregate of bandwidth (transmission capacity) purchase by the Federal Government for effective planning, monitoring and cost control in line with the economic reforms.

Its is also projected to provide the best value of ownership to the end users while offering full automatic and dynamic bandwidth on demand (BoD) capability, thus making available the required bandwidth where and when it is needed.

When fully developed, Galaxy Backbone will offer an open architecture based on Internet Protocol Technology and latest industry standard.