REMARKS BY THE RT. HON.

PRIME MINISTER OF
UGANDA AT THE OPENING OF THE ICT SECTOR
WORKING GROUP HELD ON THURSDAY 20TH JULY,
2017 AT KAMPALA SHERATON HOTEL, RWENZORI
BALLROOM

The Minister of ICT and National Guidance

The Permanent Secretary, ICT and NG
The Executive Director UCC
The Executive Director, NITA-U
The executive Director, UMC,
Members of the ICT fraternity
Friends from the media,
Ladies and gentlemen

I am honoured to be here today to inaugurate the ICT

sector working group & the consultative meeting for the
Digital Uganda Vision. I would like to commend the
Ministry of ICT and National Guidance and your partners
Intel, UCC and NITA-U for this initiative.

ICTs are nolonger a luxury that we can live without but

essential tools in the socio-economic transformation of any
Country. In addition to fulfilling the basic need of
communicating with each other, ICT has become a prime

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enabling sector for rapid growth and modernisation of
various other sectors of the economy. That is why the
government of Uganda now lists ICT as a priority both in
the Vision 2040 and NDP II.

Today Uganda is one of the fastest growing ICT markets in

the world, fuelled largely by the cellular mobile revolution
and the rollout of the National Broadband Infrastructure.
From less than 40,000 in 1995, today we have more than
22 million mobile connections. And since the arrival of
the first computer, an unwieldy mainframe, in 1967, today
we have millions of Ugandans accessing computers in
various forms i.e. laptops, desktops, palmtops etc. the
disruptive nature of ICTs is one we cannot control but
rather embrace and capitalize on to deliver better services
to our people. But although we have crossed 22 million
subscribers in mobile customers and 16 million
subscribers in internet services, still some parts of the
country have poor or low data coverage and the cost of
broadband remains high. There is a large difference
between the rural tele-density and the urban tele-density.
It is needless to mention that ICT penetration in rural
areas will benefit the rural businesses largely by giving
them direct access to customers and linking them to
various markets, suppliers, technology, and government
incentives/services.

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As government, our main focus has been on creating a
conducive environment and evolving appropriate legal and
regulatory frameworks that foster private sector, ICT led
innovations. In this regard, I am glad that the private
sector has taken lead and great solutions have already
entered the marker while others have won international
recognition. We have seen the evolution of mobile financial
services, the Uber taxi, Jaguza in Agriculture and social
media applications have disrupted our conventional ways
of communication.

On the government side, though on a slow pace,

innovations have been developed targeting delivery of core
services by the various MDAs. Some of the MDAs that
have digitized and now provide e-government services
include IGG (Online Declaration System for incomes and
assets), KCCA (e-citie), URA (E-tax, online vehicle
registration, TIN applications etc), Internal Affairs (online
visa applications), Finance (Integrated Financial
Management System in Finance), Public Service
(Integrated Payroll System), Ministry of Lands (Land
Management System), URSB (online company search),
Ministry of Trade and URA (Electronic Single Window),
UIA (Business Registration System digital one stop
centre for investors) etc. Even outside ICT, the rollex
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chapatti has taken streets by storm and has now spread
outside our borders.

The increased penetration of ICTs has led to exponential

growth in access to information. Through these
experiences, citizens demand for services has been
tremendously affected. Our people now want it faster,
safer and at their convenience through online platforms.
The trick is to study citizen expectations and behavioural
changes and innovate better ways to get services to them
in modes that are convenient to them.

While we celebrate our ICT success stories, we have

several areas to improve upon for enabling further growth
of businesses and transforming lives of our people. This
consultative meeting will help in setting various
milestones for further growth in the sector. We still have
work to do in areas of citizen registration, passport
applications, drivers licence processing, education and
Health among others, to make these services easily
accessible, faster, transparently and efficiently in any part
of the Country at any given time. The evolving digital
world in the field of education will for instance focus more
on digital literacy rather than just functional literacy. The
disparities in health services in rural and urban areas and
limited availability of doctors in some rural areas will drive
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adoption of e-health. Many gadgets are now available
which can capture vital parameters of the body and
facilitate expert doctor advice even to people living in
remote areas.

The other serious challenge remains presence of disjointed

ICT Policies and programs in some MDAs that do not
interface with one another. On this note, I applaud the
Ministry of ICT for coming up with a grand vision of a
Digital Uganda vision that embodies all the aspirations of
various MDAs and at the same time provide a blue print
for integration of government systems. The model of
Uganda Investment Authoritys One Stop Centre that
amalgamates services of seven agencies (Uganda
Registration Services Bureau- URSB, Uganda Revenue
Authority-URA, Directorate of Citizenship and
Immigration-DCIC, National Environment
Management Authority-NEMA, Kampala Capital City
Authority-KCCA, Uganda Investment Authority-UIA
and Ministry of Lands-MoLHD) is laudable and other
MDAs should aim at that to make access to public
service easier not only for investors but citizens as
well.

I believe that such fora provide opportunities for us as

government to reflect on the present situation of the
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industry, on its future outlook, and on the challenges
ahead. These deliberations will go a long way in informing
government decision making. I am sure with the combined
intellectual strength of all the stakeholders here, we can
provide a further boost to our ICT eco-system and improve
our service delivery models to better suit the needs of our
people and the global stage. I look forward to hearing
from the Minister of ICT the ideas and solutions that will
emerge from this workshop.

Thank you.

Ruhakana Rugunda
PRIME MINISTER