Dear UCC (Uganda Communications Commission), I would like you to know that with the knowledge of criminals unregistered mobile simcards switched off today, I am feeling more secure, and now waiting to see if criminality and mysterious murders by an "infiltrated, mafia police" will be a thing of the past. I was fortunate that my status as a member of a First Family of the Republic of Uganda did allow me to get my National Identification number almost immediately (in less than a week) upon application, and I then proceeded to re-register all my simcards as required even if I had originally registered them using my official passport. Meanwhile, I would like to hereby recognise the smooth, immediate, and professional sms process established by the private mobile companies. In stark contrast, at the government offices for the National ID registration, ordinary Ugandans were lining up in their thousands in long queues under the sun, including frail elderly persons, pregnant women and mothers carrying their infant babies, the sickly who could not even stand (John Kahwa of Kads band for example), and they were being told that they would only first get the national ID numbers in a month, and then the card itself in three months. At the time I witnessed them in lines for hours if not for days, the deadline was only a week away. So no matter when they started the new re-registration process, they were not going to beat the deadline. Obviously there is alot of IT catching up to do in order for public service delivery to be as efficient and caring as their private sector counterparts. The equipment procured for the national ID issuance and database is actually more recent than the mobile companies. The problem therefore can only be the professional inefficiency in government departments. Where it takes an entire month for them to register a Ugandan for a national ID, it literally takes​ seconds to register on the commercial mobile networks. So UCC, please find a humane solution because all the 20 million mobile subscribers are not criminals. Reports indicated that there were only four people on two motorcycles the day the late Kaweesi was assassinated. But with the unregistered simcard switching off accomplished today, let us get back to your normal civilian duties. I say "civilian duties" because Ugandans could be forgiven for thinking that UCC is a branch of Military police with angry-looking, gun-totting, trigger-happy directors in red berets zooming past at break-neck speed to some real or imagined terrorist. One literally has to remind him or herself that UCC is a civilian ICT department. One whose primary job is to develop and support the growth of the Information and Telecommunications sector. For the last few years, the only words we keep hearing almost every month from UCC is "banning" individuals from the media, or sending police to "shut down" a media house, plus their one constant threat to ICT/media companies of "withdrawing your licence". This is the harrassing environment that media and telecoms businesses operate in here in Uganda under the current regime. Surely that cannot be enticing to foreign direct investment. We never hear about UCC developing projects or engaging in activities that attract those foreign investments, establish new indeginous companies, employ youths, and expand the tax base of the Information and Communications industry. What is their plan to upgrade all the functions of the government into secure electronic networks. One only has to look at the government efforts in neighbouring Kenya to realise that Uganda's UCC officials are ideologically still in the Obote II/Okello era where their actual productivity and development output was zero, and where they made no single physical contribution to the sector. With the current UCC behaviour, no wonder Mobile companies are making colossal losses and/or fleeing. The one telecom company directly under UCC, namely Uganda Telecom, is reportedly actually collapsing. The major Libyan partner has packed and left following four companies Orange, Celtel, Warid and Zain whocwre now out, and I am yet to hear UCC's plan, if any, on how to make tiny UTL, the once mighty national telecoms company, return to profitability again in a market where even giants like MTN and Airtel are sweating plasma to make profits and pay their colossal taxes. Obviously, UCC's ideological confusion lends credence to the assumption that they have never thought of the industries expansion and profitability as the most important duty in their mandate. There is seemingly little or no perspective on the broader national economics around the sector. Kindly review your work ideologies, and priorities. If for some unknown reason that is impossible, please let the Ugandan people know. The truth is that there are many superqualified younger individuals out there in the streets, some educated in advance ICT markets abroad, who could do your job.
By Hussein Lumumba Amin. 20/05/2017
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