Everytime there has been a mention of Uganda Telecom, it has been associated with financial troubles and cosmetic management changeovers except this time around, it is for the good reasons and these new revelations will give its UTL diehards a smile on their faces.
UTL is promising! This has been revealed in a letter culminating from a top management meeting with ministry officials from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
The meeting held on 13th of September 2017 was chaired by Hon. Minister of the said ministry and our immediate guess lead us to Hon. Matia Kasaija with UTL honchos was to review UTL’s performance and conclusions were drawn ontop of strategic reasons (like the letter reads) and it was declared that the current management of the ailing telco was bearing fruit and government will be a mainstay till a turnaround is achieved.
UTL provides the backbone of wireless and wired (read fixed) telecom services to most government ministries institutions and thus it was declared that all mobile and fixed telephony services for Ministries and government agencies (MDAs) should be procured through UTL to sustain its operations.
Also the same agencies and ministries that owe UTL a tonne of money were ordered to clear their outstanding balances with the telecom lest they lose out on receiving their second quarter budgets for this financial year from the Ministry.
The same declaration was passed on these MDAs to procure internet services from Uganda Telecom and it was cited that this was to lower the cost of internet to Government.
All parties concerned were then asked to adhere to the above provisions to allow normalcy of services at UTL while reducing the cost of delivery to the government.
It should be remembered that the government was squared out as the biggest defaulter on Uganda Telecom services with many of the MDAs failing to honor their financial obligations to the company on top of other issues.
The above joins other concerted efforts by the government to avoid the dissolution of the ailing telecom.
It also puts to rest the scare earlier this year when the State Minister for Investments and Privatisation, Evelyn Anite made a “decree” to have every Ugandan purchase a Uganda Telecom simcard in support of the company. The burden has however been extended to Ministries and government agencies and we suppose their respective staff.
Kudos UTL Management. This is a developing story and please find the letter below
