Expert wants FG to introduce Central Billing System to curb cybercrimes

An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) expert on Tuesday in Abuja has called on the federal government (FG) to introduce a Central Billing System to aggregate bills and integrates online payment for MDA services, in order to curb cybercrimes in the country.

A+ Certified Computer Engineer, Senator Ayo Arise, who was the Chairman at the 6th E-Government Summit 2017 made the call at the E-Payment Providers Association of Nigeria (E-PAN) summit titled: “E-Government Catalyst for Economic Recovery and Sustainable Development”.

He said there is the need to harmonize data in Nigeria for the benefit of its citizenry, adding that there was need for a One-Stop-shop.

He said that a One-Stop-Shop would serve as virtual platform to streamline, aggregate and present business-to-government information and processes across government offices for easy access by businesses and citizens across different sectors.

Arise also urged the government to be more proactive in curbing cybercrimes because, according to him, if criminals go free, people would begin to think that crime pays due to less or lack of prosecution.

According to Arise, a crime free economic environment to sustain development remains a challenge in Nigeria, so the government needs to proffer solutions to curb crimes by initiating stringent measures to prosecute internet fraudsters.

He said that the government needed to prosecute ICT fraudsters by jailing them and stopping them from handling any public office to serve as deterrent to others.

“In Nigeria today, these deterrents were not really there that is the reason for the increased crime rate in the ICT sector and this scars Nigerians from leveraging on its benefits.

“The criminals are in their own kind of business, so we must continue to be a step ahead of them to always break the next step before them.

“This means that continuously we must re-evaluate our ICT situation and our position looking at how the crime is and how to curtail it.

“It is very important that we have strong prosecution in place to put ICT criminals where they belong which is in the prisons.

“I am in full total support of prosecuting people who commit crime or any kind of felony against Nigerians because that is the only way we can make progress.’’

Mrs. Onajite Regha, the Executive Secretary of E-PAN, who also called for stringent measures to prosecute internet offenders, said that the government and its agencies amassed huge amounts of structured and unstructured data.

Regha said that analysing the increasing huge data would help the government to make sound judgments.

She said that it would also improve transparency and decision-making while reducing costs leading to a reduction in tax and social security fraud.

Regha said that this would keep the country safe and healthy, especially from internet crimes.