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October 7, 2003
Commonwealth ICT Summit: Uganda's ICT Minister
Michael Kafabusa Werikhe, Uganda's Communications Minister, spoke later in the afternoon. "E-government is not a substitute for good governance, but it is a useful step in the right direction," he began. "In a nutshell, ther is no substitute for ICT if we truly want good governance." The Minister's comments echoed a video shown a few minutes earlier, showing the decripit state of record keeping in parts of the Commonwealth (for example, a shed in Ghana full of wet, moldy file folders holding records of national budget expenditures.) Computers were being introduce to allow governments to get an accurate account of their records -- and thus be more accountable to their donors and to their citizens.
Governments like Uganda are under "extreme financial stress," he said. E-government can help cut expenses, as well as cut the bureacracies that so often plague government. "Traditionally, governments provide an interface between information services and their citizens. Instead, ICTs should provide a direct interface between government and the citizenry."
"The digital divide is not insurmountable," he added. "We must quickly get on the bandwagon and even strive to play a leading role" in the information society.
"Access to better and more timely information can increase the earning potential of poor people," he said. Uganda is setting up government portals that are accessible via telephone booths with video screens built into them. The Ugandan Communications Act of 1996 restructured and privitized national telecommunications, while creating an independent regulatory agency. there are now two competing wire-based phone companies and three mobile companies. Telephony access thus grew from the tens of thousands of subscribers before the Act to hundreds of thousands today, in just a few short years. Now, they've drafted a national ICT plan that embraces ICTs for development. He hopes it will be finalized and approved by early next year. They're also establishing a Ugandan universal service fund to ensure access in villages with at least 5,000 residents. These villages will each have telephony wired to the community, plus at least one Internet point. He hopes this will help promote the idea that rural markets will be seen as potentially profitable to telecom companies.
Posted by acarvin at October 7, 2003 4:31 PM
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