BPP boss commends Galaxy Backbone Plc

Director General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), Mr. Emeka Eze, has commended the management of Galaxy Backbone Plc (GBB) Plc for its commitment in delivering government’s objectives in setting up the company.

Eze, who gave this applause while on courtesy visit to Galaxy National Data Centre and Network Operating Centre, expressed elation.

Galaxy uses these centres to provide connectivity, co-location and other enhanced quality services to its customers in the public and private sectors including Government MDAs.

The Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Mr. Gerald Ilukwe, told Mr. Eze that the Federal Government had a clear and specific focus for setting up Galaxy Backbone as Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for the harmonization and integration of the deployment of ICT infrastructure and services to public institutions, underserved communities and other stakeholders based on economies of scale which will result in cost savings for all.

According to Ilukwe, this is line with a global trend that has witnessed Governments in India, South Africa, Malaysia, Egypt, Ireland, Israel, The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, to mention a few, demonstrate the ability to use technology – ICTs - to positively transform their economies through improved public sector delivery of services to citizens and businesses.

Mr. Ilukwe therefore condemned the practice by government organizations who are duplicating efforts and wasting national resources in the face of global economic crisis through the award of contracts for ICT infrastructure and services that Galaxy is already well resourced by the Federal Government to provision.

Stressing that these measures would ensure undue approach to the utilization of ICTs is counterproductive to national development as the issue of interoperability and security of national data are compromised.

Later, the Director General and his team were conducted round the various top of the breed IT equipment installed at Galaxy’s Network Operating Centre as part of the NICEP network.

The team also inspected the company’s Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) project through which Galaxy enables the delivery of multiple, live synchronous e-learning lessons to an unlimited number of geographically dispersed students to either PC or TV-based classrooms using a friendly student/instructor interaction.

The IDL project, he explained, combines high quality bi-directional video, voice and educational tools like slide projection, whiteboard, chat and application projection.

Further, the BPP team toured the state of art National Data Centre where mission critical systems and applications can be hosted securely. In addition, organizations can utilize the data center to take advantage of dedicated Galaxy-managed servers; they can also co-locate their own servers or opt for bundled offers that include broadband connections and a mixture of other services such as multi-layered network security, management and monitoring.

Equally commenting, Head, Federal Public Sector, Galaxy Backbone, Mr. Frank Ugbodaga said “the facility tour affords us the opportunity to explore various ways that Galaxy can support the laudable work being undertaken by BPP and we also shared our roadmap for the development of ICT infrastructure and services in the federal public sector”.

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