The Papua New Guinea Department of Information and Communications Technology held its first data governance stakeholder workshop yesterday at the Hilton Hotel in Port Moresby to establish an understanding of data governance between different stakeholders and the value of data-driven digital services.
Speaking during the opening of the workshop, Deputy Secretary for Digital Government and Information Delivery Mr. Russell Woruba said the governance of data is very important at a time when Government is looking to move into the digital economy.
“It is obvious that not all Government databases are connected and the aim of the workshop is to initiate discussions on how government agencies that collect and manage large volumes of data are able to properly and securely store, organize, maintain, protect and most importantly make quality data available to other relevant government agencies for developmental purposes,” Mr. Woruba said.
He said data-driven government service must be considered a priority so that citizens in the country can receive government services in a timely manner and as and when they need those services.
“With the recent passing of the Digital Government Bill, it mandates the Department of ICT to be the ICT manager for the Government, just like any other department, for instance, Finance Department, who is the finance manager for the Government, National Planning Department, who is the planning manager for the Government,” he said.
“Data governance is essentially a development agenda and it is one of the key assets of the Government in today's digital economy.”
Deputy Secretary Woruba stated that different stakeholders govern their data in different ways but affirmed that those data if organized well can be used across multiple agencies such as the citizen using their NID data to access health, education, and other services provided by the government instantly and at the lowest cost possible.