UCC gets sh6b for rural phones
Jan 14, 2008
THREE mobile telephone providers yesterday gave sh6.7b to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) for the expansion of telecommunications services to rural areas.
By Anne Mugisa
THREE mobile telephone providers yesterday gave sh6.7b to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) for the expansion of telecommunications services to rural areas.
MTN contributed sh3,281,618,603, Celtel gave sh2,100,000,000, while UTL donated sh1,361,640,535. The chief executives of the firms handed dummy cheques to the officials from the commission at the UCC offices in Kampala.
The contribution is 1% levy stipulated by the law on the gross annual revenue of each of the licensed telecom services providers. The money goes to the universal access fund called the Rural Communication Development Fund.
According to the fund’s director, Bob Lyazi, the money is used for intervention in areas which the licensed providers find economically unviable.
Special provisions are made for the firms where their communication needs identified and projects set up accordingly. Lyazi said subsidies are given to firms that win bids to undertake the projects.
The UCC executive director, Patrick Masambu, said the 1% levy is the counter funding required by donors to give grants for rural communication development.
He added that over the last five years, the fund had set up internet points, ICT training centres and web portals in each of the districts to be accessed within a 10km radius.
Other facilities include public pay phones, research projects, postal support projects, community telecentres and school ICT projects.
Masambu said UCC would connect all schools, district hospitals, health centres and agricultural extension units to the Internet.
THREE mobile telephone providers yesterday gave sh6.7b to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) for the expansion of telecommunications services to rural areas.
MTN contributed sh3,281,618,603, Celtel gave sh2,100,000,000, while UTL donated sh1,361,640,535. The chief executives of the firms handed dummy cheques to the officials from the commission at the UCC offices in Kampala.
The contribution is 1% levy stipulated by the law on the gross annual revenue of each of the licensed telecom services providers. The money goes to the universal access fund called the Rural Communication Development Fund.
According to the fund’s director, Bob Lyazi, the money is used for intervention in areas which the licensed providers find economically unviable.
Special provisions are made for the firms where their communication needs identified and projects set up accordingly. Lyazi said subsidies are given to firms that win bids to undertake the projects.
The UCC executive director, Patrick Masambu, said the 1% levy is the counter funding required by donors to give grants for rural communication development.
He added that over the last five years, the fund had set up internet points, ICT training centres and web portals in each of the districts to be accessed within a 10km radius.
Other facilities include public pay phones, research projects, postal support projects, community telecentres and school ICT projects.
Masambu said UCC would connect all schools, district hospitals, health centres and agricultural extension units to the Internet.