The National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) has completed an e-government master plan, designed in tandem with South Korea’s National IT Promotional Agency (NIPA) as part of a pact between the two countries.
The report shows how the Ugandan government plans to utilize ICT in improving service delivery, with a central platform for information from government departments.
“The common man will not need to move to different offices to look for the information they need,” said James Saaka, executive director of NITA-U. “They will find it in a central place.”
The new e-government system will be funded by the government and involve 25 projects, including an Integrated Data Centre and a National Data Bank. Feasibility studies are to be carried out next month.
South Korea is considered a world leader in e-government, and a team from there was charged with helping Uganda in drawing up its master plan, which claims to set out “the steps necessary to build a foundation for the transformation of how government services would be provided through the use of technology”.
Ruhakana Rugunda, the Minister for ICT, said the new centralized e-government system will help combat corruption, while also improving administration and efficiency.
“Currently we have got institutions working independently and they are not co-coordinating and speaking with each other,” he said. “Once the e-Government system is up and running it will prevent data loss by establishing government recovery system of general and confidential documents.”
