The budget for the 2019/20 financial year has been read and even though it goes in effect on 1st July, there is a lot of reaction from the public on how the funds were allocated. A breakdown of the UGX 40.4 trillion budget clearly relegates anything in line with ICT to the rock bottom.
In an economy striving to reach middle income status, with key contribution from scientists and technologists, you would expect the government to invest heavily in the development of Uganda’s ICT sector. However, it has instead witnessed a drop from UGX 149 bn to UGX 146.2 bn in the new financial year, coming in below Science Technology and Innovation which was allotted a mere UGX 158 bn.
In the past five years, it was always evident in President Museveni’s speeches that the ICT sector is one of the main driver to the development of Uganda. At the 2013 Transform Africa Summit, he was quoted to say that the sector has an important role to play in technological development.
“ICT must not only be used to assist agricultural development, manufacturing, in education and the services sector but it must also be used as a sector by itself especially in out-sourcing of jobs’ abroad. It must also be optimally applied in solving challenges in automation of machines, storing and retrieving of information, identifying of persons, in democratic voting systems, sorting out the wage bill and in defence systems”.
Museveni, at a Mozilla Festival East Africa event in 2015, was also noted to assert that ICT was becoming part of all the sectors that support modern life and prosperity, and that Uganda needs to aggressively embrace it for its transformation.
“ICT helps other sectors including social services, industry and agriculture. In the past, communication through phones was done using the satellite that would send information to other parts of the world and this would cost $4,500 per gigabyte. But now it is done through cables in the ground and sea and each gigabyte costs only $300. This is all because of ICT.”
Four years later, the budget reading indicates quite something else. Giving the ICT sector less than 1 per cent in the 2019/20 budget is a clear indication that Uganda does not have it as a priority. And the consequences of this are to be undermined.
If you have been observant, the growth of every other cornerstone sector in the country is largely dependent on how much ICT is implemented in it. Yet all of these were given a lot more in the budget, without actually looking at their contribution to the country’s progress.
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A look at the transport sector answers a lot. The SafeBoda’s we use everyday to commute, the Uber’s that ride us all over town – day and night. Without these, our transport system would be a much worse mess. Go into education. A lot of innovation is ongoing at the existent Universities, with funds being wired from abroad almost every other year to effect their implementation. Doesn’t the government see this?
Share with us your view on what you think of the 2019/20 budget, especially in regards to the ICT sector.
