The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Judith Nabakooba revealed the Ministry of ICT’s achievements from 2016 to 2021 as part of presentations made during the NRM Manifesto week. These presentations are intended to provide accountability to the public by sharing perspectives on current progress and achievements, as well as challenges faced in their respective ministries.
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Here are some of the Ministry of ICT’s achievements
- 106 e-services can be accessed through the e-services portal www.ecitizen.go.ug
- 700 laptops provided to MDAs towards adoption of eServices
- Innovation grants have been given to 132 Innovators and to 6 private sector Innovation Hubs under the National ICT Initiatives Support Programme (NIISP)
- 25 broadband sites upgraded from 2G to 3G providing broadband services to over 700,000 Ugandans
- Free Wi-Fi (‘MyUg’) is provided to the general public in 284 locations in the Central Business District of Kampala and Entebbe. –There are over 2 million users on the MYUG platform each month.
More of the Ministry of ICT’s achievements in regards to access to government e-services is that 71% of government services are offered electronically via institutional websites, email, Social media, SMS and Mobile applications. The Ministry along with other partners have worked towards the digitization of various government services to improve public service delivery.
She also noted that the cost of the internet is expected to fall. “We are laying out the infrastructure to ensure there are more users of these services so that the cost is shared and some of these taxes would not be in place if the users were adequate,” she said.
The Minister of ICT and National Guidance attributed the high cost of internet to the low number of internet users in the country hence the overall cost is shared among few people leaving the cost burden to them.
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According to The Independent, accompanying the minister was the Uganda Communications Commission acting executive director Irene Sewakambo, who reiterated that pockets of unregistered phone sim cards are posing a threat to national security.
“It is a responsibility of the telecom companies to ensure the SIM cards are legally registered. Now there is attribution of the phone sim cards some people have been using other people’s ID cards to register SIM cards yet the owners of the IDs don’t know or did not give consent. We have now strengthened the SIM card registration include use of biometric machines to improve the integrity of the exercise,” said Sewakambo.
Great emphasis was put on the fact that a national ID or any official documentation that is used to register a SIM card is responsible for how the SIM card is being used hence people should avoid using the national IDs to register for others.
For more on the Ministry of ICT’s achievements, go to this LINK.
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