REMARKS

BY

HON. FRANK K. TUMWEBAZE,

MINISTER OF ICT AND NATIONAL GUIDANCE

AT THE

ICT STAKEHOLDERS CONSULTATIVE WORKSHOP ON

DIGITAL UGANDA VISION

AT

KAMPALA SHERATON HOTEL

Thursday July 20, 2017

Rt. Hon. Prime Minister,

Colleague Ministers and MPs present,
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of ICT
Executive Directors of UCC, NITA-U, Posta and UBC
CEOs of telecom Companies present,
CEOs of media houses present,
Members of the ICT association of Uganda,
The ICT fraternity,
Friends of the media,
All stakeholders in the ICT industry,

Good morning to you ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to this ICT

Sector Stakeholders Consultative Forum. Thank you for coming.
On a special note, I take the opportunity to welcome our chief
guest Rt Hon Dr Ruhakana Rugunda and I thank him for taking
off time to accept to come to launch this consultative forum on
the digital Vision for Uganda.

I would like to thank our partners and particularly our sponsors

Intel and all our agencies i.e., UCC, NITA-U, Posta Uganda, UBC,
UICT and Uganda Media Centre for making this meeting possible.

Why the Digital Vision?

With the ever changing demographic composition and technology

trends, globalization and increased access to knowledge by the
citizenry, governments world over are increasingly under
pressure to meet expectations of the public through innovative
and responsive citizen-driven services. There is more demand for
seamless citizen driven public services; boundaries are non-
existent and governments must provide access, efficiency,
transparency and effectiveness in public services. For all this to
be, clear policy instruments discussed and bought-in by all
stakeholders have to be put in place so as to create an enabling
environment.

Today, we are not only discussing our in-house plans to enhance

digitization of Uganda , but we are also seeking your views as
stakeholders in the ICT Sector so as to help shape a common
country ICT vision. One however, may ask, does this mean that
Uganda and the ministry of ICT didn't have an ICT policy in
place? The answer is that we are not short of ICT policies. We
actually have many policies and strategies. As the ICT sector for
example, we have the Sector strategic Investment Plan (SIIP)
guiding all the interventions of the ministry as well as the
agencies. Different Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs)
have their own in-house ICT strategies and have invested heavily
to build electronic systems. I take the opportunity to
congratulate all those government agencies that have put ICT as
a priority in their work plans. It is also true that many
government services in the field of e-commerce can now be
assessed online. The digital vision therefore, we are formulating
is not undoing what has been achieved but rather seeks to make
the situation much more clearer by integrating all the existing
policies into one master document called Digital vision with
clearer milestones for the entire government. Just like the
Ministry of works sets construction standards for the
construction industry, the digital vision will be the equivalent in
terms of the ICT function.

Integration of government systems aimed at increasing efficiency

in the delivery of public services and fighting duplication of
functions, cannot be complete without a clear digital vision
understood by the whole government and setting out milestones
for each sector. When complete, the Digital vision will be the
overall policy ICT framework for the country. It will set
targets/milestones/ ICT basic standards for each sector of
government to follow and implement . It will define clearly for
example what the judiciary needs to invest in so as to run e-
courts. What the Ministry of health should do to run e-clinics (e-
health), what the financial sector should do to run a digital
cashless economy (e-commerce), what the agricultural sector
should do to implement e-agriculture as well as many other
sectors like Education, transport and aviation. The digital vision
will also set milestones for the country to invest in satellite
communication in the future because it's the most reliable means
of communication and least prone to nature and man-made
disasters.
The discussion we are launching today therefore, will continue to
solicit as much knowledge as possible from you various
professionals of different sectors so as to define correctly what
milestones to set. We shall also bench mark the work of other
Countries since Uganda is already an active member of many
regional and international ICT fora like Smart Africa, internet for
all, ITU, Postal Union among others. When the digital vision is
complete and passed by cabinet, each sector of government going
forward will be audited to see how it complies with its sectoral
ICT targets/milestones. Uganda will only progress upwards on
the ICT rankings, if all the MDAs implement their respective
targets. The private sector is always easy to cope since efficiency
makes a lot of sense to their business balance sheets.

The digital vision will also enumerate measures on how to

enhance digital literacy among the population so as to narrow the
divide between the educated and the uneducated and generally
change the mind-set about uptake of ICTs. ICTs are here to stay
and they can only continue advancing and disrupting the way we
live. We therefore have to be prepared to harness them for
positive growth.

Government has invested in connectivity and we are trying to

make sure that we achieve affordability and therefore inclusion.

Whereas we have not achieved full access, internet connectivity

can now be achieved in over 90% of our Country through telecom
operators and with the increasing penetration of smartphones, it
is possible for anyone, anywhere, to access online
content/services. With more continued investments in tech
infrastructure by both government and private operators,
internet speeds will improve greatly. We are however aware of the
high costs of data in our domestic market and we are trying to
understand the push factors beyond what we know. Engagement
with the licensed operators is ongoing to ensure that data costs
are affordable and within the range of the regional market.
As I speak, Government concluded the procurement of Bulk
Internet Bandwidth for MDAs/LGs which shall lead to a
reduction in the cost of Internet Bandwidth. Effective 1st July
2017, the cost shall reduce from USD 300 to USD 190 per
megabits per second per month for all Government MDAs, LGs
and target user groups such as hospitals, research institutions,
Business Process Outsourcing agencies and innovation hubs.
Even then, we want this cost to go down further and also go
down in tandem with what the private operators are charging.
Government Intervention is done cautiously so as not to squeeze
the licensed telecom operators out of business. The engagement
we shall be continuing to have with licensed operators will
harmonize all this.

E-government is increasingly taking centre stage in the

innovation eco-system and as I pointed out earlier most MDAs
have taken their services online. We have indeed witnessed the
emergence of systems like IFMS, IPPS, E-citie, URA cargo
tracking and IGGs Online Declaration System in Uganda, e-visa
among others. These systems have created a lot of efficiency
gains for the public and the implementing agencies, but the
challenge is that in most cases, they remain stand-alone with
limited or no interaction at all with the rest of government. They
have yet to integrate with the other systems and feed into one
another. Our agency NITA-U is spearheading this integration. It
will transform government processes and cut out substantial
delays of red tape. The digital vision will further define these
linkages and also guide on the management and sharing of data
across government.

This being a consultative forum, I wish to hear more from you.

The presentations yet to be on the draft digital vision reflect only
so far the internal views of the ministry. Feel free to dismantle
the draft, critique it sharply such that the final output is for us
all and is quality assured. But given the nature of ICTs and tech
trends, our sector will constantly be reviewing this vision so as to
match the changing times.

I look forward to hearing and learning from you.

Thank you for listening to me.

Frank K. Tumwebaze, MP
MINISTER OF ICT AND NATIONAL GUIDANCE