Sometime this month, Uganda's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), together with Chinese technology company Huawei, will launch the first phase of the national data backbone, which has cost some US$30 million. The fiber-optic cable interconnects government institutions and departments with the aim of reducing spending on public administration.
Ministries, government departments and agencies have been equipped with plasma TVs and Internet videophones. "This means Ugandans will get services faster; it also means government can cut administration costs," ICT Minister Dr. Ham Mulira said in an interview.
The data backbone is also intended to increase the speed of implementing government programs, provide basic communication to rural communities and improve service delivery in the fields of health, education and agriculture.
The first phase, which covers the cities of Kampala, Entebbe, Bombo and Jinja, is complete and is being tested.
Uganda is alone among East African Community (EAC) member states in deploying the infrastructure that should make e-government a reality in Uganda.
Mulira said the key issue in the second phase of implementation, which should commence shortly, is to link Uganda's borders with those of neighboring countries -- work that has partly been done by both MTN and Uganda Telecom.
MTN will complete a fiber link to the Kenyan border to link up with the Telkom Kenya fiber, which will run from Malaba to Nairobi to Mombasa, and this will form part of the East African Backhaul System (EABS) project.
EABS is a joint venture among operators from Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, and it will link the five countries to the EASSy cable along the eastern Africa coast.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Edris Kisambira
Quelle/Source: CIO, 07.04.2008
