Give us tax relief – NCS

UMBRELLA body of Information Technology (IT) professionals in the country, the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), has urged the government to assist the organized private sector (OPS) by offering of tax relief.

This is coming as NCS also advised the National Assembly to expedite action on the nation’s IT bill.

NCS in a communiqué after its recent Annual General Meeting (AGM), said this relief has become imperative to enhance software engineering practice for result-oriented academic-industry collaboration.

President, NCS, Dr. Chris Nwannenna, was quoted in the communiqué as saying that government should also deploy models and optimize techniques capable of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the private and public utilities, such as electricity, water supply, petroleum and gas supply, educational planning and management in addition to criminal justice.

The body also canvassed for a better funding of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

This, NCS said, would enhance the chances of NITDA achieving its primary objectives, which include the provision of digital access to relevant organizations, comprising the academic and government parastatals.

NCS, in a 15-point communiqué also observed that current curricular of IT programmes in the nation’s tertiary institutions were generally obsolete.

“This deficiency is further reinforced by the absence of qualified and experienced IT lecturers and state-of-the-art laboratories,” NCS said.

The federal government was therefore, urged to increase the vote to the tertiary institutions for tools to improve the production of skilled manpower in IT for both local and international consumption. Short URLs: goo.gl, mcaf.ee, cli.gs