Nigeria is seeking help from major U.S. companies such as Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) in a bid to recover from recession.
The Nigerian government is teaming up with major tech firms such as Microsoft and Oracle to try and streamline its economy. The country’s government has been investing more towards fighting corruption. Oracle has so far helped the Nigerian government to remove roughly 50,000 fake entries or ghost workers entered in the government payroll. This was announced in a statement towards the end of June. This came about one month after Oracle opened its offices in Abuja.
More companies are interested in working in Nigeria
Yusuf Kazaure, the managing director of an organization called Galaxy Backbone which is owned by the Nigerian government revealed that more tech firms are interested in working in Nigeria. Kazaure stated that some of the companies include Swedish firm Ericsson AB and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM).
Microsoft is determined to help accelerate the rate of technology adoption in the country especially by non-profit organizations. The company believes that this will open up more doors for creative ideas that will in turn help to solve challenges. This also aligns with the fact that Nigeria has plans to invest more in information and communication technology infrastructure this year. The country believes that the investments plus the interest by foreign companies will help spearhead economic growth so that it can recover from its worst recession.
Apart from attracting investors, Nigeria is also working towards the enhancement of government systems so that it can improve revenue collection. It is also working on simplifying government processes. Adeniji-Adele, the director of public sector work for Microsoft in Nigeria stated that digitizing the government is important towards eliminating middlemen.
“The existence of middlemen has left room for corrupt and illegal practices to thrive in the governance and doing business in Nigeria,” Stated Adeniji-Adele.
Microsoft is in talks with Nigeria’s ministry of industry, trade, and investment towards the improvement of online services. This aligns with the objective of eliminating middlemen while making it easier for users to access government services.
Microsoft stock closed the latest trading session on Monday at $68.17.
