IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

According Mr Awori, the reasons for halting the process is based on the need for the involvement of National Information Technology Authority - Uganda (NITA-U).

The second phase that includes wiring up much of the country with about 1,500km of telecommunication cabling at a cost of $61m is underway and is expected to be completed just in time to celebrate the landing of undersea cables on East Africa's coast in Kenya. The funds are provided through a Chinese loan to Uganda.

Government officials from Zambia, Namibia, Malawi and Tanzania have been to Uganda to see for themselves what the country is doing, with the aim of using the Ugandan experience as a blueprint for their respective countries.

Is the Uganda government set to become an efficient deliverer of services to the 28 million Ugandans out there? At least this is what the nationals are supposed to believe if the benefits that accrue from the completion of the first phase of the National Data Backbone is anything to go by. The government has said that it will now be possible for the different ministries, government departments and agencies to hold meetings on videoconference calls; that the president will now be in a position to address parliament or cabinet on a video call.

The government web portal will be a one stop information centre where the public can access government information.

“As a ministry, we shall ensure that all sectors avail the necessary information to us. This will allow our information and technology team to upload all the information to the central web portal,” said Pius Mwinganisa, the principal information officer at the Ministry of Information and National Guidance.

They are not using the national backbone infrastructure that government has laid in some parts of the country because its quality is in question.

Ugandans want government and telecommunication companies to develop measures to bring down the cost of internet services to support innovations in ICT and other internet-powered projects in various fields of the economy.

It has emerged that some telecommunication companies, the leading internet service providers in the country, are using their independent internet infrastructure and while others pay private internet firms to deliver it to Ugandans.

The President reasoned that because the war in Northern Uganda consumed most of his time for the last 23 years, civil servants had a field day pillaging public funds.

Telemedicine is a video conferencing system initially intended to connect patients throughout Virginia with doctors and nurses at UVa.

After previously despising the presidential debate as a high school “speaking competition”, Uganda’s incumbent President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni attended the second presidential debate of this year’s State House race on Saturday, along with the other seven presidential candidates.

The debate had been intended to focus mainly on “peace and security, foreign relations, East African integration, the Great Lakes region and terrorism,” according to a post on the State House website late Saturday.

"The report reveals both encouraging and cautionary trends," the bank said in a statement issued recently.

The World Bank said in a report Wednesday that digital technologies are critical in reviving Uganda’s economy, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The international finance institution said in the latest edition of the Uganda Economic Update that the country’s economy this year is projected to grow between 0.4 to 1.7 percent.