Emma Okonji
The federal government, though the Ministry of Education, has promised to support the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN) with logistics that will help the regulatory body effectively curb quackery in the computing profession.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, who made the promise in Abuja while inaugurating the newly elected members of the Computer Profession Council in Abuja last week, said there was need to address the situation where Information Technology (IT) practitioners in Nigeria operate without being registered and regulated by CPN. This, he said, is giving rise to quackery, which he said has cost the federal government huge revenue losses, aside putting executable IT projects at risk.
The newly elected President of CPN and Chairman of Council, Prof. Charles Uwadia, told THISDAY after the Council inauguration that the issue of quackery had long existed in the IT profession in the country, with attendant loss of huge revenue through capital flight.
According to him, most IT professionals who execute big and small projects, are not registered with CPN are not being regulated by CPN, whose mandate according to Decree 49 of 1993, is to monitor and regulate the practice of computing profession in the country.
Uwadia said every individual and organisation that is practicing computing profession in the country is supposed to register with CPN, but expressed deep dissatisfaction that majority of the big players were not registered with CPN, yet they practice the computing profession in Nigeria without paying their dues and service charges that are accruable to government, amounting to huge loss of revenue.
He listed three point agenda, which include enforcement of the Act setting up CPN, in relation to revenue generation; expanding the value proposition for members; and sustainability of upon which CPN should operate no exercise its powers.
“Quackery can be more devastating, because it leads to huge loss of revenue and I am happy that the minister has thrown his support for CPN to carry out its regulatory function and bring all computing organisations to get registered with CPN,” Uwadia said.
Uwadia however assured those involved that the Council would first serve them with letters to remind them of their responsibility with CPN, before carrying out the enforcement.
He appealed to those who had initially registered with CPN, but ceased to pay their dues, to regularise their registration with Council without further delay.
Allaying the fears of some computing professionals who felt their interests were not well taken care of by CPN, he said that the Council would hold a round table conference with chief executives of IT companies to address their complaints, and to seek further collaboration. “For some members who felt that CPN was not providing enough benefits to them, the round table conference will address all of that,” Uwadia said.
He further explained that even though Council has the mandate to fight against quackery in the profession, his administration would handle enforcement in such a way that it will reduce quackery to the nearest minimum, since it is absolutely impossible to completely eliminate quackery from the system.
