Uche Usim (Abuja) and Adewale Sanyaolu
As the battle against COVID-19 rages, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has developed a contact-tracing software that would be deployed in all its locations across the country.
The move, it noted, was in line with the Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) agenda of the current leadership of the national oil company.
Its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, quoted the corporation’s Group General Manager, Information Technology Division (ITD), Danladi Inuwa, as saying that the novel app was part of the NNPC’s sectoral contribution to curb the spread of the pandemic within its formations and ministries, departments and agencies of the government.
“The contact-tracing solution is ready to be deployed, all the technical testing have been done and the solution is ready to go live. Everywhere you go around NNPC locations would be covered by this novel application which would reveal all information about persons visiting any official and should there be any medical challenge, the NNPC medical would be able to track from the information at the database all the contacts and advise properly,” Inuwa averred.
He said the application could also be used by members of staff of the corporation to document their private visitors at their homes, stressing that the novel application would enable the workforce to adjust adequately to the ‘new normal’ way of living to minimise the spread of the disease.
The IT expert stated that in order to minimise human contacts in business transactions at the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a downstream subsidiary of NNPC, in the face of COVID-19, the corporation has also deployed a sales and distribution application in the oil and gas secondary model portal that would enable marketers buy petroleum products online.
He said the application, known as the Customer Express, would also enable marketers to register, validate and revalidate their Bulk Purchase Agreements online within a week, adding that the portal provides a dashboard that enables the corporation to track every molecule of products being imported, transported and sold at every given time.