NITA-U sets date for e-government regulations

By Julius Businge

The National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) has set July as a month when all government institutions will start adhering to regulations regarding the use of the internet.

Stella Alibateesa, the acting executive director at NITA-U said on the sidelines of the e-government regulations conference in Kampala on June 19 that they were holding the last stakeholders workshop to pave way for the implementation of these regulations.

E-government is the use of the internet to extend service delivery to the citizens.

The e-government regulations popularly called cyber laws include the Computer Misuse Act and the Electronic Transactions Act. “Government wants to interact with the citizens through the internet to improve service delivery,” said Alibateesa, adding but this interaction has to be regulated which is why we are ready to implement these laws.

NITA-U is implementing the National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure in a bid to front the use of ICTs as one of the best avenues to improve service delivery and spur socio-economic transformation.

While delivering the State of the Nation address early this month, President Yoweri Museveni listed the ICT sector as one of those sectors that government hopes will transform Uganda from a peasantry to a modern and self-sustaining economy going forward.  However, the sector’s budget allocation remains one of the least in the past Financial Years.