Nigeria Content Online

The Cross River
State government has signed a joint venture agreement with Interswitch
Limited for the implementation of the Cross River State Identity
Management and E-Payment Backbone.

The state governor,
Liyel Imoke, described the occasion as a reflection of a new way of
doing business in Cross River, stating that the government will
continue to partner with the private sector to improve on service
delivery, and help make a difference in the lives of the citizens. He
said the project will be a success story for the combined effort
between the public and private sectors.

Mr Imoke said the
project has great potentials to improve the people and the government
of the state, by providing a strong backbone for E-Payment, as well as
opportunities to gather information and data in identifying the
citizens of the state and determine the number of people required in
the civil service. He added that the goal of the project is to build an
operation that will deliver identity management and payment processing
at no cost to the state government. It will also improve the internal
revenue generation capacity of the state, as well as provide accurate
data and fail-proof identification of citizens for development
purposes, social services and planning, he said.

He urged the
operators to ensure that the contents of the agreement are adhered to,
for the people to enjoy the service which they provide.

The state government will provide the legislation and support,
whilst Interswitch will provide the technical expertise and funding.