Judith Nabakooba, the Minister of ICT and National Guidance presenting ministerial performance during the ongoing NRM Manifesto Week on Monday (PHOTO/Courtesy). KAMPALA – The Minister of ICT and National Guidance Judith Nabakooba has reported a 14.8% growth rate of ICT services in Uganda in the past four years as she presented the sector’s performance in the NRM Manifesto on Monday.
Nabakooba said that the sector’s contribution to GDP averaged 3.1% and significantly contributed to national revenue as telecoms are the leading taxpayers.
She said Free Wi-Fi dubbed ‘MyUg’ is provided to the general public in 284 locations in the Central Business District of Kampala and Entebbe from 5 pm to 6 am on Monday to Friday and full availability over the weekends.
“There are over 2 million users are on the MYUG platform each month.
Additional MyUG 300 locations will be provided around the country before December 2020,” she said.
Nabakooba revealed that the National Data Centre and Disaster Recovery site have been upgraded to Tier 3 classification, hosting 60 MDAs, over 94 critical applications and 358 websites.
She said 22 base stations in rural areas upgraded from 2G to 3G to provide internet to over 1,000,000 Ugandans.
According to Nabakooba, there are over 25.6 million mobile phone subscribers,
15.2 million internet users and 26.4 million mobile money subscribers with an active user base of 15.6 million.
“Mobile transactions have reached a high of UGX. 19 trillion,” she said.
The minister further revealed that locally developed integrated Academic Information Management System (AIMS) has been rolled out in 15 public universities, saving the country foreign exchange. Willis Bashasha, the director Manifesto Implementation Unit (PHOTO/Courtesy). “Government is promoting ICT innovation to create jobs, for import substitution and to avoid over-dependence on foreign ICT products,” she said.Commenting on media engagement, the minister said Government Citizens Interaction Centre has been strengthened to provide digital Social Media Communication on Government programmes.She added that “UCC has formulated Content standards and conducted training to guide media practitioners against biased and irresponsible reporting.”Nabakooba noted that her ministry is in plans of establishing a national service program.“A bill to operationalize article 17 and objective 29 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda on the duties of a citizen is in progress,” she said.She revealed that in 2016, President Museveni directed the Ministry of ICT&NG to promote assembling and manufacturing of electronics in Uganda. Egn. Irene Kaggwa Sewankambo, Acting Executive Director of Uganda Communications Commission (PHOTO/Courtesy). In November […]