Users want sim card validation at sub-counties

Mobile subscribers have requested that sim card registration taken closer to them and be carried out at sub-county levels citing congestion at the service centres found only in towns.

Tom Okurut of Pasia village in Agule sub-county in Pallisa district, said travelling 14 km to Pallisa town to queue for the exercising was tedious.

 UCC boss Godfrey Mutabazi

Okurut said if the Uganda Communications Commission could direct mobile telecom service providers to scatter their agents to sub-county, the deadline will be met.

"You cannot make a person who had a cup of porridge as his meal the previous day to trek 14 km to update his sim card status at the service centre," he said.

Max Okiria, Simba telecom agent in Pallisa, said since Friday by 8:00am, people are already at the service centre waiting registration and the lines keep growing until 6:00pm.

"The information given by Uganda Communications Commission is clear that registration is free, but when it comes to the photocopying of the national identity cards for those who used other forms of documents, people argue challenging us to explain why photocopies are needed when the service is 100% free," Okiria said.

Rebecca Akia, 56, a resident of Omukulai village in Kibale sub-county, on Saturday said after taking advantage of being in Pallisa market, she branched to Simba Telecom to have her records put right, but got surprised to be told to go and photo copy the identity card.

"I had only sh6, 800, which I used to buy 4kgs of dry cassava chips, so I missed registration and I will not have time of coming to Pallisa again," Akia said.

The rush to register follows the directive by Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) to have all SIM cards registered in seven days, making April 20 as the deadline.

However, according to World Bank's Global Findex data, this will affect daily business activities as over sh700b transacted will get choked as 35% of Uganda's adult population of  6.7 million people, have mobile money accounts and by July last year, there were over two million transactions daily, trading sh101b.

It's against this background that the ICT Association of Uganda (ICTAU) on Thursday warned that the deadline set by UCC for the registration of simcards will affect the already vulnerable economy.

In a letter addressed to the UCC Executive Director, Godfrey Mutabazi, ICTAU chairman Albert Mucunguzi indicated that the seven-day deadline for verification of over 20 million customers in the sector is stringent and impossible to achieve by both the customers and the telcom companies.

People lining up for SIM card registration. Pictures by Lawrence Okwakol

Mucunguzi said the timelines further include the four days of Easter holiday through which the companies will be closed and customers will be busy celebrating the festivities. He said Uganda's economy increasingly relies on mobile money transfers and related services.

"This directive, as written, could weaken the mobile money ecosystem by disconnecting large numbers of users, thereby causing harm to the overall economy. This outcome would likely have a disproportionate impact on rural customers who rely on mobile money services as a matter of survival, and are less likely to have the National IDs necessary to complete the re-verification process", Mucunguzi's letter to Mutabazi stated.

Ezra Otaan, an economics teacher from Kamonkoli college in Budaka, said he remembers very well that last year Bank of Uganda (BoU) Director Financial Stability, Charles Augustine Abuka, said the amount of money transacted through mobile money in the year ended December 2015 was sh32.5 trillion.

"I suggest that as people come to transact in mobile money let their particulars be captured and all the unregistered line be disconnected automatically," Otaan said.