NITA–U develops forest licensing system
Mar 19, 2021
The system will allow the farmers to access information about their application status; make online payments among others.

NITA–U develops forest licensing system
Edward Kayiwa
Journalist @New Vision
The National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) has developed an e-licensing system aimed at helping the National Forestry Authority (NFA) in the registration and licensing of tree farmers and dissemination of information.
The system, which also helps the forestry regulator to monitor acreage, will also aid farmers in monitoring their harvest, as well as allow them to make online applications for tree planting.
Additionally, the system will allow the farmers to access information about their application status; make online payments and access payment information among other features.
While handing over the system to NFA, the NITA-U executive director, Dr Hatwib Mugasa, said the system will boost efficiency in service delivery, as well as improve the performance of the forestry sector.
He said it would also help increase the forest acreage, which according to experts, has been reducing over the years, having fallen from 24% cover in 1990 to 12.5% presently.
“We were pleased when NFA approached us to provide technical support in digitizing the institution. We have so far connected NFA to the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI), hosted their website on the Government Cloud and today we are glad to hand over this E-Licensing System, “Mugasa said.
Over the last thirty to 40 years, Uganda’s forest cover has faced increasing threats from growing human population, demand for forest products for domestic and industrial use, expansion of agricultural land, illegal settlements and weak forest management capacity.
The NFA Executive Director, Tom Okello Obong, said the new system has been designed to allow back end approval processes, provide a dashboard for management and a range of reports.
He said the next phase of implementation will see the system extend licensing to other areas such as Research, Eco-tourism and Occupation, Telecommunication masts, Nursery Management and Mining.
“When we started this project, our goal was to facilitate tree farmers in accessing services from NFA online and provide real-time information about farmers for better management. I’m glad to announce that as we speak, we are migrating and updating existing farmers into the system. Farmers will now be able to apply from anywhere and at any time, “he said.
The system comes at a time when Government through NITA-U has embarked on integrating all Government systems so that data can seamlessly be shared across Government in a rational, secure, efficient and sustainable manner.
To date, NITA-U has developed 24 applications including the e-Licensing system, the national SMS gateway, the e-passport application system and many others.
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