By Spy Uganda
Kampala: Addressing the press today at Uganda Media Centre (UMC), National Information and Technology Authority (NITA-U) Executive Director Dr Hatwib Mugasa noted that they are set to close the Regional Communication Infrastructure Program (RCIP) aiming to digitally transform public service delivery.
Mugasa said the project closure roadmap will run for two months with different activities set to happen in all regions of the country which will culminate into a grand closure and e-services exhibition in Gulu on 31 August 2022.
He noted that regional activities are meant to create more awareness of available e-government services as well as the project’s achievements.
He said that under the Regional Communication Infrastructure Program, NITA-Uganda has registered significant progress over five years period with 100% completion on all the set activities.
Among the mega achievements Mugasa cited include the extension of geographic reach of broadband connectivity across the country with 764 Kms of optical fiber cable added to the National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI).
”Under RCIP, NITA-U has registered significant progress over the 5-year period with a 100% project completion of all set project activities which include; Extension of the geographic reach of broadband connectivity across the country. With 764 Kms of Optical Fibre Cable added on-to the Government National Backbone Infrastructure (NBI). Additional 842 Km of Optical Fiber was extended under missing links which covered West Nile,” he said.
Now, NITA-Uganda’s Director E-government Services, Collin Babirukamu said that as part of the efforts to extend support to the Agricultural sector through RCIP, the Agro-input Traceability System was developed with the seed, agro-chemical & the phytosanitary modul.
”Users training for the system were also completed for the key stakeholders/users of the system,” Collin Babirukamu said.
Not only the above, but Government SMS/USSD Gateway has also been developed as a shared platform for dispatch bulk SMS by different Government ministries departments and agencies. This e-service had been provisioned to 32 MDAs utilizing a total of 22 services.
Further, Government Unified Messaging and Collaboration System (UMCS) has been provisioned to one hundred and twenty-eight (129) Government entities with a total number of twenty-three thousand fifty-six (23,056) users on-boarded onto the platform.
Meanwhile, TheSpy Uganda has learnt that RCIP program was designed with two main objectives:
1. To lower prices for international capacity and extend the geographic reach of broadband networks (the connectivity development objective).
