ICT central in NRM's transformation agenda

By Rose Namayanja Nsereko

The exuberance of the on-going presidential campaigns illustrates the expanding political space and the growth of Uganda’s democracy.

However, the campaign messages by some presidential candidates, thus far, are either lacking in facts, out of context or laced with outright falsehoods.

Kizza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi are, for instance, attempting to dupe Ugandans with the pledge of ‘revolutionising’ the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. They are promising ‘free’ ICT infrastructure and computers, among others. None of them has been honest enough to acknowledge the tremendous growth of Uganda’s ICT sector over the last decade.

Uganda’s dynamic ICT landscape, as it is today, is creditable to the institutional framework created by NRM, for instance, a Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MoICT), the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) and the National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U).

UCC, through the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF), continues to provide the infrastructure, computers and software to bridge the ICT gap between rural and urban areas in Uganda.

For instance, the school ICT Laboratories Project, under which computers and internet connectivity is being rolled-out, remains one of the most successful in Uganda. By May 2015, 1,067 ICT laboratories had been established across the country. This arrangement also offers retooling of teachers to teach ICT, community ICT training and installation of on-line (virtual) content.

ICT and Internet connectivity reach has grown so phenomenally in Uganda, that today, 97% of the country is covered. The Government has also set up 3,543 public pay phones at parish level, 1,067 of the total 1,150 Government secondary schools (93%) have ICT laboratories. Computer studies are now integral at ‘O’ level and compulsory at ‘A’ level.

ICT is now at the core of central and local government operations. UCC and NITA-U have provided computers to local governments and supported 110 districts in Uganda to establish web-sites. The district websites are inter-linked with the central government web portal i.e. www.gov.ug

Through this web portal address, facts and figures about ministries, departments, agencies and local governments are readily available. Information about business, investment, tourism and other any other aspects of interest about Uganda can now be easily accessed on-line via this web portal, from within and outside the country. To ensure freshness of content, the President has challenged all accounting officers to regularly up-date government websites.

ICT is also being progressively integrated in Uganda’s health services, with facilities for telemedicine now operational in 167 health facilities. Postal services network coverage and ICT integration into postal services has also continued to improve. Twenty postal tele-centres, 25 postal cantres are in place to ease communication in Uganda.

Television broadcasting in Uganda is also rapidly improving due to the incorporation of ICT. The analogue to digital migration for television, under a partnership between UBC and UCC, has been enabled by installation of the necessary ICT infrastructure in Kampala and at other sites up-country. Completion of the analogue to digital switch will pave way for high definition pictures, crisp sound quality and ultimately revamped television content throughout Uganda.

Uganda’s ICT sector has been growing so fast, that in Financial Year 2014/2015, it generated tax revenues amounting to sh478b. Following the ICT sector’s liberalisation, by the NRM government, telephone subscription in Uganda now stands at 20.63 million people. Today, we also have about 8.5 million internet users in the country and the ICT sector accounts for 2% of Uganda’s GDP.

Surely, the electorate in Uganda is able to separate the facts from fiction.

Uganda’s ICT ‘revolution’ can only be taken to the next level by President Yoweri Museveni and the NRM government, who started it in the first place!

The writer is the national treasurer of the National Resistance Movement Party