By: Kyeyune Ali
The government of Uganda aspires to use ICT in the every corner of the country and every sector.
At the Office of the Prime Minister in Kampala, NRM is reviewing the Manifesto 2021-26 and Minister for ICT and National Guidance Hon. Kabbyanga Godfrey on Thursday asserted that the country needs E-security, E-education, E-health and also E-gavornance to reduce corruption in Uganda.
The ministry highlighted three critical areas for the ICT sector including prompting the utilization of ICT in Urban and rural areas, enhancing digital skills and innovation and increasing ICT network coverage in the country.
The ministry of ICT and National guidance have presented the Report and indicated that in Uganda a total number of fixed internet subscribers now reaches at 48,133 and mobile subscribers are totalling to 16 millions out of the 37 millions active mobile subscribers.
For this Case, the number of internet subscribers compared to the active mobile subscribers is still low.
State Minister for National guidance Hon. Kabbyanga Godfrey Baluku highlighted ” the reduction of internet costs will be determined by the increments of internet subscribers”
“Now the world has gone digital therefore I call upon all Ugandans to embrace this new digitalized era.”
“The data sharing and integration platform has been rolled out to ensure seamless exchange of information between systems and reducing operating costs.”
The ministry’s Report indicates that a total of 15,658 citizens are primarily youth and women from the business community have been equipped with essential basic and intermediate digital skills and over one thousand government officials have been trained in specialized ICT skills tailored to modern governance needs.
The training focused on leveraging data analytics for informed policy making conducting remote meetings to optimize time and resources supporting e-learning.
Permanent secretary of National guidance madam Zzawedde Aminah said that ” the ministry of ICT with Ucc we have managed to regulate over 301 radio stations and 48 TV and there’s an increase in active pay TV subscription from 777,588 in 2016 to 2.3 millions subscribers in 2023 , this means that the government has improved in it’s technology “.
