Ministers, MPs receive iPads

Dec 05, 2013

Members of Parliament and ministers have received iPads to service them in the execution of their constitutional mandate.

By Paul Kiwuuwa
                   
Members of Parliament and ministers have received iPads to service them in the execution of their constitutional mandate.


Presiding over the handing over of iPads to MPs, Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kagada appealed to MPs to accelerate the transaction of parliament business now that all the necessary documents will go online.

“No more excuses, all committee reports and ministerial statements will be sent electronically. These tools are for parliamentary business,” Kadaga said.

The government of Uganda, with bilateral assistance of South Korea is in the process of implementing e-governance in all ministries and government departments with the aim of eliminating unwieldy bureaucracy which tends to hamstring service delivery.

Uganda expends over sh30b on courier services and stationery annually, although attempts to compute how much money parliament spends on stationery is tedious process because every sessional and standing committee is allocated a budget for stationery.

The parliamentary committee on Information Technology has over the years advised government to roll out e-governance, with committee Vice Chairperson, Vicent Bagiire, always questioning the rationale of expending over sh30b on stationery and courier services, yet the budget for ICT ministry has never gone beyond sh6b.

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});