The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, and NITA Uganda Executive Director, Dr. Hatwib Mugasa, presented to the President the expanded coverage of the National Backbone Infrastructure, showing [him] the completed Phases 1 to 4, which cover 4,387km of fibre laid across the country, and the additional 5,845km expected to be laid in Phase 5, covering 63 more districts across the country.

The NBI expansion will bring broadband access to more communities enabling the Parish Development Model (PDM) to thrive. With the PDM Information System, beneficiary validation and progress tracking become faster and more efficient, unlocking opportunities for sustainable development and driving economic transformation.

The NBI Project emphasizes four key sectors intending to modernize households and transform the economy: commercial agriculture, industry, services, and information and communications technology (ICT).

The project also includes last-mile connectivity to over 2,800 sites, such as schools, hospitals, government institutions, parishes, youth and community centers. Furthermore, Wi-Fi coverage will be extended to an additional 1,754 sites nationwide.

The NBI project is a government imitative by the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance through its mandated body National Information Technology Authority (NITA) Uganda, intended to ensure that internet connectivity is available across the country at a reasonable rate.

The project has been supported by the Government of China through a concessional loan and has seen the successful completion of 4 Phases with Huawei Technologies contracted to construct the infrastructure. Following the completion of Phase 4, 1,567 government sites including MDAs and LGs have been connected to the NBI, the price of the internet has reduced from USD$205 in FY 2021/22 to USD$35 in FY2023/24, and internet penetration has increased from 25% in 2017 to 67% in 2023/24.

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The Minister for ICT and National Guidance Hon. Chris Baryomunsi said the price reduction means government offices connected to the NBI will consume the internet at the lowest price in the market.

This landmark achievement solidifies the government`s position as the undisputed market leader in setting Internet prices. With this bold move, NITA-U will drive substantial savings on the government’s communication budget, catalyze the adoption of e-Government Services, and deepen digitization while paving the way for improved access to online services for citizens.

“At NITA-U we’ve been working hard to consistently lower the cost of internet bandwidth in Uganda especially for government institutions since they provide onward services to ordinary citizens and the private sector,” said Dr. Hatwib Mugasa, Executive Director NITA-U. “We are happy that we have maintained our long-term plans to lower bandwidth prices’.”

Consequently, the use of the NBI as a secure highspeed network for the government has led to lowering the cost of communication across the government and further enabled the extension of the geographic reach of broadband networks across the country and altogether Improved the government’s efficiency and transparency through e-Government applications.

The National Backbone now extends to all regions of the country spanning 4,300km extending connectivity to around 1466 Government offices, 53 districts, and 9 border points.

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The discussions have involved officials from Uganda Registration Services Bureau, National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) and Uganda Telecom Limited.

Sources inform us that NITA-U has demonstrated intent in implementing the directive by ensuring that the internet service provided to Ministries, Departments & Agencies (MDAs) is supplied through the channel that Uganda Telecom uses, West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC). The internet supplied by WIOCC would complement the already superior internet service being consumed by the 322 MDAs that receive connectivity from the National Backbone Infrastructure whose current internet capacity supplier is Seacom.

To-date, it is reported that NITA-U has been able to maintain an SLA (Service Level Agreement) of 98% with its current MDAs that receive connectivity from the NBI. With the now characteristic ‘always on’ nature of online government services, efficiency has been observed in agencies across the board. This is attributable to the stringent SLAs that NITA-U has delivered thereby ensuring reliability and consistency in the on-ward services provision in Government agencies.

It is owing to this robust network that mission-critical government systems like Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) from the Ministry of Finance, Planning & Economic Development have maintained an excellent uptime throughout the year.

It is expected that with NITA-U purchasing additional internet capacity from WIOCC, nation-wide connectivity of Government offices will improve as previously underserved MDAS/LGs that were in areas of the country where NBI hadn’t reached, would now get connected to the government network through this initiative.

Some experts have raised concern on the ability of WIOCC to provide internet services to UT to enable connectivity through the NBI to Government agencies at a price as competitive as NITA-U has been getting as a result of the strategic bulk internet procurement that NITA-U undertook from Seacom. Currently, as a result of the bulk procurement of internet, NITA-U has lowered the cost of connectivity for Government agencies from $1200 per Mbps in 2012, to the current cost of $70 per Mpbs. NITA-U has indicated before in the media that it plans to lower the cost further to $50 per Mpbs in July 2018.

Industry experts have raised concern on whether WOICC & UTLL can match the current competitive price point that is provided by Seacom.  Investigations reveal that WIOCC participated and was unsuccessful & expensive in the International Competitive Bidding procurement for the Provision of Bulk Internet Bandwidth for Government of Uganda bid under the World Bank funded project, Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (RCIP). If indeed WIOCC has competitive pricing that would benefit Ugandans, how come it was not able to provide a good price in the above bid? Below is a summary of both bids:

WIOCC was more expensive by the successful awarded bidder, Seacom by an entire USD. 500,000.

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More information on this procurement can be found on: http://projects.worldbank.org/procurement/noticeoverview?lang=en&id=OP00046131

We wait to see if indeed UTL, through WOICC, can match the current internet pricing being offered by NITA-U to Government agencies.

The post Update on the implementation of the Presidential directive on Internet service provision to Government agencies appeared first on PC Tech Magazine.

The project that aims to connect all major towns across the country including Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies via an optical fiber cable network so as to reduce the cost of public administration, support delivery of secure e-Government services as well as enhance communications services in the country.

The Authority reports on the successful completion of Phases I – III of the NBI/EGI Project, as part of a deliberate effort to ensure the network is able to consistently provide 99.9%, and the Missing Links project was started upon.

Following up on queries raised by the Budadiri County West Member of Parliament, Hon. Nandala Mafabi, specific to the Missing Links project, NITA-U was requested to provide
responses to the queries raised.

During this morning’s discussion, the Chairperson of the ICT Committee, Hon. Annette Nyakecho welcomed views from the committee members on how to proceed in light of two letters from the World Bank and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority that provided guidance that the procurement was ongoing and the Evaluation the report wasn’t available to enable the investigation into the allegations made. It was further noted that according to Paragraph 24.7 of the World Bank Guidelines 2014, NITA-U is barred from sharing information in any form relating to the evaluation until the publication of the award of the contract.

It was therefore against this background that the Parliamentary ICT Committee Chairperson directed that NITA-U is excused from the meeting and would be invited back once the Missing Links procurement process had been concluded.

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NITA-U welcomed this guidance from the Parliamentary ICT committee, World Bank and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) as it will allow for the conclusion of the procurement process of the national strategic project, Missing Links.

The expected benefits of this project include:

• Improve redundancy for the existing National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) by creating more rings on the NBI and create redundant routes across the country geographically.
• Extend the reach of the NBI/EGI to other major towns and regions that are not covered under the current scope of Phase I – III. It was a process undertaken over several years and borne out of existing high-level requirements to cover the West Nile and some of the Northern Uganda Regions not covered in previous phases.
• Extend connectivity to the major border points across the country and achieve the objective of regional connectivity.

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The authority came out to publicly share statistics of their undertakings in reducing the cost of internet connectivity to government offices.

“This effort has been deliberate and we are happy to have led the industry in reducing the cost of connectivity to Government offices by over 84% since 2010, when 1Mbps cost a government office $1200 to the current cost of $70 for 1Mbps.”

NITA-U attributes this success to the effective completion of the three phases of the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) project which saw over 2,400km of fiber laid across a number of towns in the country.

There are up to 321 Government MDAs and Local Governments connected to the NBI currently, NITA-U shared in an official communication. The Authority plans to have connected 730 MDAs and Local Governments to the backbone by the end of Financial Year 17/18.

“This means that more MDA/LGs will access reliable internet at a low cost, which translates into significant cost savings for the Government of Uganda,” NITA-U said.

NITA-U claims that there will be a further reduction in these costs; “It should be noted that there is a planned reduction in the cost of internet to Government offices that will take effect in July 2018, it will reduce further in July 2018 to $50 per 1Mbps.”

On irregular awarding of CyberQ/Comtel Certification Services Contract
NITA-U says CyberQ Consulting came out as the best company after an international bidding process. Consequently, CyberQ partnered with a local organization, Comtel, who were their local partners.

“It should be noted that this procurement was carried out as per the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) rules with quality control at each stage to ensure all the bid requirements were met and the consequent award was considered compliant to the PPDA regulations.” the Authority said.

“The procurement is turn-key in nature, what this means is that CyberQ/Comtel undertook to design, construct and implement the Certification of Providers of IT Products & Services. This involves operational costs associated with running a full-functional certification office with salaried staff, tools of trade, office equipment, a lot of field visits across the country and other related expenses. Therefore the revenue share between CyberQ Consulting and NITA-U took into consideration the nature of the project, turn-key.” NITA-U continued.

On exaggerated costs of constructing transmission manholes
NITA-U says the accusations that it is overpricing the cost of constructing transmission manholes are false, not factual and an unfair assertion. “A simple check in the market will reveal that a transmission manhole is more than just a cover. It includes culverts, a concrete cover, joint boxes (JB)to mention but a few.”

This comes after some social media reports suggested that the cost of constructing a single manhole cover is UGX 400,000. Emphasis should be on the fact that it is not only a manhole cover but a transmission manhole:

• The costs involved to construct a manhole whose base is 1300mm diameter and 100mm thick, with a precast concrete top section of 1100mm diameter and 100mm thickness. Including the accessories involved in the construction process.
• Cost of making a manhole cover which is made of polymer, hard plastic branded with NITA-U logo that comes with a ring and a 600mm diameter removable cover.
• Cost of transportation and installation of precast manholes, that are then are placed in excavated pits (2m by 2m). Backfill material is then placed around the ring and compacted.

On overpricing Switches
The IT Authority also addressed the issue that it is exaggerating the price of a switch at $2400 (approximately UGX 8,700,000) instead of UGX 1,400,000.

To which it responds that the contract for extensions to the NBI defines a CISCO 2960 24 port model switch to be used and this model on the market starts at $2400. “A quick search on the internet would show this price.”

NITA-U continued, “Costs for switches are determined by the functionality required of those switches. Just stating the number of ports is not enough to determine the functionality or the cost of a switch.”

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He also said that the sector generated Ush416.7b in 2014 and currently employs over 1.3 million Ugandans.

Also the mobile phone penetration in Uganda currently stands at a staggering 19.5 million users which translates into a teledensity of 53%. MTN Uganda has the bulk of this; 10.4 million subscribers.

MTN Uganda is also currently the leading mobile eCommerce network having over 7.3 million registered mobile money users and over 25 million transactions per month.

Overall figures indicate that more than 85% of mobile bill payment collections in Uganda are made through the MTN Mobile Money platform.

In addition MTN has merged its mobile money platform with that of five banks; Bank of Africa, Centenary Bank, DFCU Bank and Pride Microfinace. This has increased access to financial services.

“Improving access to efficient and affordable ICT services is key to promoting private sector investment, by significantly reducing the cost of internet services and which also stimulates the growth of other related sectors of the economy,” Kasaija said.

He however acknowledged that there is still a lot more work needed especially from the government’s side.  As it appears, government is still reluctant to adopt eServices preferring to execute tasks manually.

The Finance Minister said that much as the operationalization of the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) has led to a reduction in government expenditure to the tune of Ush5.3b per year with only 30 public offices connected, eGovernment is still a challenge to implement.

“In the coming year, an additional 60 offices will be connected to further reduce public expenditure on connectivity by Ush9.4b,” Ksaija noted.

Adding, “The National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) is currently consolidating the hardware and software licenses with the objective of accelerating delivery of Government services. Other developments include the connection of Public Universities to the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) to enable access to high speed internet connectivity and facilitate e-learning and technological research.”

Kasaija added that in the next year, interventions in Information and Communications Technology will include; completion of the third phase of the NBI extended to include Short Messaging Services (SMS) and Data Services by December 2015; connect more Ministries Departments and Agencies to the NBI to reduce the cost of internet connectivity and promote e-Government; strengthen the legal and institutional framework for ICT use and IT information security; establish a fully integrated one stop centre for investment linking the National Identity Card System, the Integrated Financial Management System, Government Payroll System, (IPPS) and Computerized Education Management System (CEMAS), among other interventions.

He also disclosed that construction of the National ICT Park and Innovation Center at Namanve will commence in the next financial year.

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We await to see how many commercialization of production and value addition will apply not only to Agriculture but also the ICT like what MTN has done by commercializing the web and mobile applications developed in the recent MTN App challenge.

Access

Improving access to efficient and affordable ICT services is key to promoting private sector investment, by significantly reducing the cost of internet services and which also stimulates the growth of other related sectors of the economy. The ICT sector currently employs about 1.3 million people and generated up Shs 416.7 billion in 2014 up from Shs 332 billion in 2013. It contributes almost 2 percent to national output. The number of mobile telephone subscribers now stands at 19.5 million, while internet subscriptions increased from 3.4 million in 2013 to 4.3 million in 2014.  But this is still low at 16.2% compared to 39.2% in our neighboring Kenya.

Mobile Money

The volume of various value added services such as Mobile Money transfers and other data related services are becoming more popular. All these are attributed to the improved ICT infrastructure. The issue however is the 10% tax on Mobile money transactions has been upheld and also the bank charges attract 10% tax. With MTN introducing the Bank Push and Pull an invention would deepen financial inclusion.

National Backbone Infrastructure

The operationalization of the national backbone has started yielding positive results. By January 2015, thirty (30) public offices were connected to the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) and received high speed internet bandwidth. This intervention has led to a reduction in Government expenditure to the tune of UGX 5.287 billion per annum. In the coming year, an additional 60 offices will be connected to further reduce public expenditure on connectivity by UGX 9.347 billion.

The National Information Technology Authority (NITA-U) is currently consolidating the hardware and software licenses with the objective of accelerating delivery of Government services. Other developments include the connection of Public Universities to the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI) to enable access to high speed internet connectivity and facilitate e-learning and technological research.

One Network Area

A One Network Area for telecom services for partner states under the Northern Corridor Integration Project was established. As a result, calls originating and terminating in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan are charged at the local call rates, hence, reducing the cost of cross-border business transactions from USD 18 cents to USD 10 cents per minute.

Digital Migration

Digital Broadcasting Migration that increases the efficiency of the use of the broadcasting spectrum has commenced with a pilot phase covering Kampala. Digital Migration in broadcasting will be rolled out nationwide, under a Public Private Partnership arrangement.

Next year interventions in Information and Communications Technology will include the following:-

• Complete the third phase of the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI);
• Extended to include Short Messaging Services (SMS) and Data Services by December 2015;
• Connect more MDAs to the NBI to reduce the cost of internet connectivity and promote e-Government.
• Strengthen the legal and institutional framework for ICT use and IT information security;
• Establish a fully integrated one stop centre for investment linking the National Identity Card System, the Integrated Financial Management System, Government Payroll System, (IPPS) and Computerized Education Management System (CEMAS), among other interventions.
• Operationalize the second phase of the National Backbone Infrastructure; and
• Commence the construction of the National ICT Park and Innovation Centre at Namanve.

In 2014, Government completed construction of two phases of the National Transmission Backbone Infrastructure (NBI). This has improved Internet connectivity at a more affordable cost. This has equally reduced the cost of bandwidth to USD 300 per Mbps (Megabit per second) per month, down from USD 600 per Mbps prevailing on the market.

“I encourage the private sector to utilize this infrastructure in order to reduce their costs of doing business and enhance their efficiency and profitability” the Minister said. Because in order to increase the economic benefits the country receives from improved connectivity, a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) incubation center at the Statistics House was officially launched. The Centre employs 250 employees, directly. An additional 4,000 employees are currently employed by other BPO operators in the sub-sector. This represents an opportunity for Uganda to become a business process outsourcing (BPO) hub on the global market. The Government needs to look at building centers across the country rather than have a National Hub at Namanve.

The problem with Finance is using Statistics like a drunkard uses a light pole for support rather than illumination. At the end of the financial year 2015/16 Ugandans would want to see how the Macro outlook of this budget in terms of completing the third phase of the National Backbone Infrastructure brings about the micro beneficence. When the third phase of the NBI is completed how will this trickle down to me the daily internet user rather than just promoting eGovernment.

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