ICT ministry is perfectly on course
Apr 24, 2008
EDITOR—We refer to your article “ICT ministry fails to use sh5b†published on April 22. The article contained misrepresentation of facts, figures and conclusions and insinuated under-performance of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the ICT sector in general.
EDITOR—We refer to your article “ICT ministry fails to use sh5b†published on April 22. The article contained misrepresentation of facts, figures and conclusions and insinuated under-performance of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and the ICT sector in general.
Since its creation from scratch in June 2006, the ministry rapidly embarked on activities to guide, develop and implement strategies for creating an ICT environment that would enable the country to fully adopt and exploit the use of the new technologies in all sectors to enhance the national development process in the new global information society era.
In addition to establishing its own structures and staffing, this has been done through the introduction of policies, regulatory framework, construction of infrastructure and collaboration with the multiple partners such as the private sector, bilateral and multilateral agencies.
In policies, the ministry provided a full liberalisation of the telecommunications sector which has resulted in the phenomenal growth, therein, as can be seen from the level of investment attracted through more service provision, wider geographical coverage, wider range of services and lower costs.
As a direct consequence, the number of subscribers has risen from 2.2 million in 2006 to the current 5.2 million and still growing in just 18 months.
Further, the services have shifted from plain voice and simple text messages to GPRS, EDGE, 3G and Blackberry which allow for tasks such as mobile Internet access, mobile TV and others.
In addition, the ministry embarked on laying the National Data Transmission Backbone to cater for affordable, reliable access to bandwidth for voice, data and multimedia communications in the country. The first phase has been completed and includes having connected all Government ministries which can allow for voice and video conferencing facilities across the entire Government.
Strategies have been developed and are being implemented to enable ease of access to computers to different sections of society including schools, civil servants and small and medium enterprises. It can be recalled that the ministry was also responsible for ensuring the successful provision of all communications and IT services during the CHOGM Conference in November, 2007.
It should be mentioned that as an outcome of the efforts, Uganda has been profiled as being one of the fastest growing ICT nations in the region and a number of countries have visited to study and share our experiences with them.
Indeed, in the recent Africa ICT Achievers Awards held in South Africa, Uganda was recognised as one of the top three countries in Africa for ICT growth and adoption alongside Mauritius and Tunisia. The ministry was accordingly given an award which was humbling given that it was only recently established.
Much as the role of the media is appreciated, it is unfortunate that misrepresentation and inaccuracies in reports creates a negative attitude towards developmental efforts by Government. One wonders what metrics the article used in stating that the Ministry of ICT under- performed when all developments are glaringly visible.
Performance on budget expenditure is a financial analysis matter and is distinctly different from performance on mandate. The meeting with the ICT Committee was on the former and clarifications were given and understood by the Committee.
Dr. Ham-Mukasa Mulira
Minister of Information and Communications Technology
Since its creation from scratch in June 2006, the ministry rapidly embarked on activities to guide, develop and implement strategies for creating an ICT environment that would enable the country to fully adopt and exploit the use of the new technologies in all sectors to enhance the national development process in the new global information society era.
In addition to establishing its own structures and staffing, this has been done through the introduction of policies, regulatory framework, construction of infrastructure and collaboration with the multiple partners such as the private sector, bilateral and multilateral agencies.
In policies, the ministry provided a full liberalisation of the telecommunications sector which has resulted in the phenomenal growth, therein, as can be seen from the level of investment attracted through more service provision, wider geographical coverage, wider range of services and lower costs.
As a direct consequence, the number of subscribers has risen from 2.2 million in 2006 to the current 5.2 million and still growing in just 18 months.
Further, the services have shifted from plain voice and simple text messages to GPRS, EDGE, 3G and Blackberry which allow for tasks such as mobile Internet access, mobile TV and others.
In addition, the ministry embarked on laying the National Data Transmission Backbone to cater for affordable, reliable access to bandwidth for voice, data and multimedia communications in the country. The first phase has been completed and includes having connected all Government ministries which can allow for voice and video conferencing facilities across the entire Government.
Strategies have been developed and are being implemented to enable ease of access to computers to different sections of society including schools, civil servants and small and medium enterprises. It can be recalled that the ministry was also responsible for ensuring the successful provision of all communications and IT services during the CHOGM Conference in November, 2007.
It should be mentioned that as an outcome of the efforts, Uganda has been profiled as being one of the fastest growing ICT nations in the region and a number of countries have visited to study and share our experiences with them.
Indeed, in the recent Africa ICT Achievers Awards held in South Africa, Uganda was recognised as one of the top three countries in Africa for ICT growth and adoption alongside Mauritius and Tunisia. The ministry was accordingly given an award which was humbling given that it was only recently established.
Much as the role of the media is appreciated, it is unfortunate that misrepresentation and inaccuracies in reports creates a negative attitude towards developmental efforts by Government. One wonders what metrics the article used in stating that the Ministry of ICT under- performed when all developments are glaringly visible.
Performance on budget expenditure is a financial analysis matter and is distinctly different from performance on mandate. The meeting with the ICT Committee was on the former and clarifications were given and understood by the Committee.
Dr. Ham-Mukasa Mulira
Minister of Information and Communications Technology