The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday in Abuja that its Global Communication Network (GCN) facility would enhance effective and secure communication among Nigerian embassies worldwide.
Mr Mohammed Danjaji, the Director of ICT in the ministry, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
He described GCN as a multimedia facility that would allow for not only effective communication among Nigerian missions, but also staff training on ICT compliance.
“This GCN is to provide data services, video services and audio services between the missions and headquarters and amongst the missions themselves; a secured communication link.
“The training centre was built in order to improve the training facility in the ministry so that officers can easily be trained on how to use the Global Communication Network.
“That would close the lack of capacity gap and lead to a large percentage of usage of the new system that has been established.”
According to the director, the implementation of the project which began in 2008 was delayed due to insufficient funds.
“We have been implementing the project in phases due to the lack of funds.
The government has given us money to install this facility in 66 missions and so far we have been able to install the facility in 60 missions.
“The remaining six missions, we couldn’t implement it because those missions have problems associated with the lack of getting the necessary free import permits from their hosts. So that is why the six are still pending.”
Danjaji assured that once the challenges faced in acquiring the import permits were addressed, the facility would be installed.
He pointed out that of the 105 Nigerian missions, 39 were yet to have the facility installed due to the lack of funds.
The director, who did not give a specific timeframe, said when the funds were ready, the missions would have the facility installed.
The GCN/IT Training facility was inaugurated recently by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb.Olugbenga Ashiru.