Now, Jobless Brotherhood drags UCC to court over SIM-cards

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has been dragged to the High Court in Kampala over  its 7-day ultimatum issued to Ugandans to re-register their sim-cards or they risk being switched-off.

One of the Jobless Brotherhood’s founders Norman Tumuhimbise together with Rights Trumped Ltd have gone to court, saying the time frame issued by UCC  is inadequate to cover the millions of Ugandans who use mobile phones.

The Jobless Brotherhood describe themselves  as “a non partisan youth platform for exposing and curbing youth exploitation, manipulation, desertion, unemployment and corruption in Uganda.”

They are better known for the protests against graft and cronyism in which they drop piglets usually around parliament. The Brotherhood claims to have 5,000 members.

What’s the complaint?

The Jobless Brotherhood are challenging the act of UCC to restrict Ugandans to only use National IDs as the official identification  document for this exercise  and deny them the right to use their passports and other official documents issued by the Ugandan government.

According to court documents,  the use of passports to register sim-cards is only a privilege of foreigners.

Norman Tumuhimbise of the Jobless Brotherhood further argues that Ugandans in the dispora are also  being discriminated by this  7-day  ultimatum  since their  mobile phones will be switched- off without  registration centers set up abroad.

Through Nuwagaba and Mwebesa advocates , they now want court to issue an interim order against the 7-day ultimatum and orders permanently blocking such ultimatums  since it’s a continuous process for Ugandans to purchase mobile phones and sim-cards.

The matter has been allocated to Assistant Registrar Joy Kabagye Bahinguza for hearing tomorrow April 19, 2017 at 9:30am.

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editor@independent.co.ug