The
Government of Uganda through the Ministry of ICT and NITA has been spearheading
laying of the National Fiber Backbone that has covered a considerable area of
the country primarily to promote e-governance and to support
business and improve service delivery in MDAs, Local governments, Government to Business and Government
to Citizens among others. This is probably the biggest ICT project GOU has
undertaken. The visibility of e-governance services in Uganda can only be
traced to URA’s e-tax system; Ministry of Finance Payment Systems, NSSF
users account tracking, NWSC payment systems, UMEME payment systems and a government
Ministries, Departments and Agencies websites. The government is also planning
to procure ipads worth 1.4 billion Uganda Shillings for the members of
parliament.
The Private
Sector
The
private sector however has been at a break neck speed in trying to implement
ICTs to do business and serve their customers better. This can be experienced
in sectors like health, education, banking,
telecommunication services, advertising and many others. There is therefore a
very big contrast between Government and private sector in terms of utilization
of ICTs for service delivery to the extent that the government is clearly
experiencing hardships in regulating the private sector especially in the areas
of unsolicited SMS and Voice messages and also protecting consumers from the
exploitative hand of different telecom providers.
Is the country
on the right track towards utilization of ICTs for service delivery?
There
is a very good trend in the absorption of Radio and Television services in the
country as more and more FM and Television stations are licensed into business.
Many citizens, both rural and urban have access to mobile phones, Radios and
Televisions some powering them with alternative sources of energy like DC
batteries and solar panels.
There
is also an increasing rate of absorption of smart phones among the urban and elite
population in Uganda. Smart phones have also been used as a vital tool for corporate
companies (Private Sector) to empower their employees especially field workers to keep in touch
with the office Operations. They are configured with office mail and other office
applications for real-time decision making thus allowing employees more
flexibility for increased productivity.
Opportunities
There
are opportunities in implementation of Internet applications/technologies to ease
service delivery in Uganda notably in the following areas;
1.
Passport
applications
2.
Driving
permits applications and renewals
3.
A
Centralized Database of Ugandans
4.
National
Citizen IDs
5.
Digitization
of physical addresses for every citzen
6.
E-Learning
7.
E-Health
and Telemedicine
8.
Pension
claims
9.
E-Banking
10.
Electronic
Voting
11. Company Registration
For
an Investor, local and International, there is an opportunity to venture into
one or more of the applications above which undoubtedly will improve on the lives
of Ugandans at home and in diaspora. All this to succeed however needs a good ‘political-business’
negotiator as implementation will heavily depend on the political will and practical
support but he government owes it to the citizens, to put more commitment and
dedication in having service delivery improved and this might be the open
window to exploit.
Besides all the government efforts, generally access to public services is still tedious due to the colonial day’s beaurocratic manual systems that seem frustrating. This may also be a contributing factor to vices like bribery and corruption, smuggling and disregard of the law which in turn makes government lose revenue. Some citizens find it cheaper (It is always cheaper) to bribe an official to get a passport or a driving permit quicker and with lesser processes.
