FEC approves placement of doctors, unveils new ICT roadmap

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday gave approval for the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria to facilitate the placement of doctors across health institutions in the country.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, said the programme, which would kick off by 2018 is essentially to bring to an end the suffering being faced by young Nigerian doctors.

“At today’s meeting, Council considered a memorandum from the Federal Ministry of Health to centrally coordinate, place and fund the placement of house officers in accredited health institutions across the country.

“By this singular act, the suffering of thousands of Nigerian young doctors will be put to an end,” the Minister said.Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami who also addressed reporters yesterday, said Council gave approval for the ratification of treatise associated with intellectual property of copyrights and other international conventions.

He said: “these treaties ‎are intended to provide protection to our creators, musicians, audio-visuals as far as the copyrights of their productions are concerned.”
He noted that as signatory to those conventions, Nigeria has a responsibility to ensure that they take the benefits and enjoy the advantages of the treaties and conventions.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, said a new roadmap to restructure the ICT sector for better service delivery has been unveiled.The roadmap, which he said would span from 2017 to 2020, is expected to contribute to the Economic Recovery Growth Plan, including the prospect of generating 2.5 million job opportunities between now and year 2020.

Shittu also gave indication of government’s plan to set up a new ICT university in order to create a hub for ICT related issues, especially to facilitate the expansion of broadband network to all parts of Nigeria.

His words: “At last, the ICT road map 2017 to 2020 has been approved for implementation by the government. This road map is essentially a framework for development of ICT in Nigeria generally.

“We believe ICT will also contribute in making businesses easy and service delivery easy because of the e-government component of it and because of the e-commerce component of ICT road map,” he said.