The Sustainability of Uganda’s egovernance Strategy
Masembe Michael
Makerere University
ABSTRACT
The advent of Information Technology in both public and private organizations in Uganda has made it necessary for government to adopt a more technology-centric direction of governance and public service delivery, thus the nascence of e-governance. An African state, the country cannot wait to go through the entire evolution of development which the developed world has gone through. Uganda has to borrow this advancement in technology, learn to live with it and use it to create newer technology. If the country were to wait for the entire nation to be purely elite so as to adjust to these changes, then it may have another century to go. Easily, the government may have to advance with the few who can live with it who may in turn expose the ignorant ones to it. The current trend has made ICT no-longer a reserve for the affluent but also the poor. ICTs have touched the lives of all persons, both small and big companies and a new forum has as such come up on which the government can correspond with its clients remotely, this forum is egovernance.
egovernance is the procedural reformation of how governments work, share information, engage citizens and deliver services to external and internal clients for the benefit of both government and the clients that they serve using ICTs. It is a tendency towards virtual governance. Success of this transition is determined (fractionally) by technology 0.2, Business Process Reengineering 0.35, Change Management 0.40) and Luck by 0.05 (Subhash, 2006).
The complete metamorphosis of egovernance from the existent systems of governance calls for strategic structural planning to be imbued into the practitioners of such reformations, else an incomplete metamorphosis is destined to arise and the resultant outcomes are likely to be far worse than the situation intended to be bettered. However, for Uganda’s case egovernance is still locked on eservices and is yet to transit to complex egovernance products like edemocracy (Subhash, 2006).
This paper examines the strategies and principles adopted by the government of Uganda (here on GoU) in its endeavor to adopt egovernance. The analysis herein is based on the timelines, cost effectiveness and reliability of methodologies employed in achieving egovernance. This’ tallied against the intentions of the GoU in its national ICT policy (refer to Uganda E-Government Strategic Framework Final Draft January 2006) which led to the eventual creation of a fully fledged MoICT from the MoWHC).
Government is not a single operand in the e-government equation and should not thus consider itself sole and independent variable (the reason UTL and MTN were consulted to this effect). This is re-affirmed, learning from the case of Safaricom, which signed over 4Million subscribers to M-PESA in Kenya; which indicates how the private sector can bring the citizenry on board of policy in an unprecedented manner, better than the government. So this paper examines the G2Citizen, G2Business, G2G and C2Employees interdependencies in relation to the contribution to the enhancement of egovernance; and how much each party has been made to contribute to these re-engineered governance systems or how far these perceived contributions have been achieved.
These interdependencies must ensure 4 primary issues; that information is efficiently uploaded to systems, that there is maintenance of dialogue, transacting and governance.
The bloodline to the efficiency predicted of these workings has subtly been neglected. The misconception has been that egovernance is merely the computerization of standalone back-office operations. In reality it shall call for a revision existing government processes, work cultures and people’s attitudes else it shall meet extreme indolence. So, it cannot be as easy as fronting an “e” on government. It’s parallel implementation would be the only way out as we wean the citizenry from old processes to new ones.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: LAYING FOUNDATION FOR EGOVERNANCE
In order to create establish a successful egovernance transition, the Government of Uganda (GoU), drafted The National ICT Master Plan. This has phased institution of egovernance into the Foundation (2006-2007), Adoption (2008-2009) and Transformation (2010-2011) stages. Phase-1 was planned to establish a Network Management Office (NMO) and create of a proper budget and planning processes amongst others; whether this project has been performed to its billing is an issue of study in this paper. In all its endeavors this policy must support the 13 National Development Objectives for which The Ministry of ICT, as the executive agent with the appropriate mandate has been ideally suited to meet; whether it has achieved this is another point of concern in this paper (National ICT Policy, 2006).
MoICT has bodies which it has tasked to fulfill this mission, UCC and NITA. And again Uganda has subscribed to the IGF for to further this ambition. UCC's primary objective is to Promote and Ensure nationwide penetration and equitable distribution of communication services with specific emphasis on universal access (thus the Rural Communications Development Fund – RCDF was set up this gap between rural and urban Uganda). Success at this objective means there is a ready platform to sow the seeds of egovernance.
There was need for the fast tracking of this initiative which saw the birth of the National Information Technology Authority(NITA) which(since formation) intends to integrate IT into National programs by focusing on establishment of coordinated and harmonized national IT systems by 2010(Note that it is already 2010). However, there are questions as to how far NITA-U has succeeded in reaching its goals.
Now that NITA's life is coming to its end, let's re-visit its original objectives of:
• Providing first-level technical support for Government IT systems and MoICT to effect National IT Strategies and Master Plans.
• Formulation and implementation of national IT Policies and Promotion of eGovernance, eCommerce and eLiving, amongst others.
• Setting and monitoring IT standards in planning, acquisition, implementation, delivery, support, organization and sustenance of IT equipment and services.
• Providing IT standards & guidance for quality services including Risk Management & Contingency planning identifying and establishing IT training requirements for effective utilization of the technologies
• Providing IT capacity building and awareness facilities
• Ensuring data protection and security on the IT systems deployed.
Whereas NITA is yet to fully yield its goals, there is need to revisit Component 2 - E-Government Infrastructure (EGI) plan that was proposed and funded in the 2008/2009 FY national budget. This project intended to establish an E-Government Network Infrastructure designed to reduce the cost of doing business in government, improving communications between government agencies, reduce the need for officials to commute for meetings and, thus, increase efficiency. The network for Phase one was expected to require approximately 168.51Km of fiber while the whole project would require about 2118.64km of fiber and other attendant equipment. However, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd is yet to run the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Data Centre (DC) that were by now expected to be fully operational and the fiber laid out so far is questionable, the circumstances of its lay-down too.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In some ways, not all, Uganda is ready for egovernance (National ICT Master Plan, 2006) though its e-readiness index is just 0.33 (compared to Denmark’s 9.0 as the world leader); because it is almost impossible to have a fully ready citizenry. This is true because, even the developed world atleast has a marginal population which is still computer illiterate (EIU, June 2009). This brings in a new unpredicted turbulence into the existing egovernment strategy where some sections of the country (rural) have to leapfrog to egovernance while others (especially the urban areas) shall have a ‘near-clean-sheet transition’ to egovernance. (Michael Blakemore, 2006). This research therefore seeks to establish the suitability of the strategies employed by the GoU in implementing its egovernance.
OBJECTIVES
1. To determine the efforts so far put in place to implement egovernance in Uganda.
2. To determine the suitability of egovernance strategies to the Ugandan environment
3. To suggest alternative loops and recommendations to complement the already existing strategies for the success of Uganda’s egovernance
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What strategies has the Ugandan government instituted to implement successful egovernance policing?
2. How suitable are these strategies to the success of egovernance in Uganda?
3. Suggest recommendations to be added to the already established initiatives for the success of Uganda’s egovernance?
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study examines the contribution/responsibility of the government, private sector, and the citizenry in the implementation of egovernance in Uganda as stipulated in the Ugandan National ICT master plan of 2006 to date; and thus seeks to establish the missing links inhibiting the effective institution of the strategy to date.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
1. This proposal shall highlight the key areas which were overlooked in the planning and structuring of egovernance in Uganda so as to alert policy maker on the importance of getting back to bridge such gaps.
2. This proposal shall provide a better insight on egovernance to practitioner, stakeholder and the academia about the various components that are needed to interoperate for successful egovernance frameworks.
3. This study intends to add knowledge to the existing pool of existing egovernance knowledge in providing a more conducive environment for the implementation of egovernance strategies
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
MISSING LINKS IN eGOVERNANCE
The Ugandan government has not practically involved the private sector in this policy strategy. Anyway, the private sector is public centric and market driven in its activities but not the government. Yet, at times some government information in regard to these projects is termed secret information in the name of national security, but the private sector may not perceive it so; thus may end up divulging such information. The blame is on the African governments’ camouflage to claim potential public consumable information as highly secret. This blurs the image of governments’ projects before the citizenry; the biggest consumer of these projects thus the poor reception of egovernment services.
Therefore, there is need to dismantle the secret state, the democratization of the concept of national security and the integration of the e-democracy processes within broader constitutional structures and debates of African states (Olaware, 2009).
In this respect, the URA has broken the barriers by exposing all required tax information on its web portal for tax payers to know all details pertaining to tax. All tax Acts, The Tax Payers Charter; Procedural documents have been uploaded onto the portal (www.ura.go.ug) for taxpayers’ consumption. This coincides with, the private sector thinking; that the more exposure of information you get to people, the more attractive and marketable you become before the public.
GAPS TO BRIDGE
The infrastructure to man the proliferating departmental egovernance systems have not been built to suit tomorrow’s needs. The optic fibre cable laid down by Huawei to act as the national ICT backbone has been questionable over time in terms of capacity. And more over there is little trained manpower with the required expertise to run the systems (this leaves Uganda to hiring experts who triple the cost of hiring a local). And the public mind is not prepared enough to receive the systems being introduced. There is thus need to involve the stakeholders in bridging these gaps that often exist between project design and African public sector reality.
These large 'design—reality gaps' can be seen to underlie failure of most egovernment projects; particularly because e-government concepts and designs have their origins in the West; origins that are significantly different from African realities (Heeks, 2002).
The National IT strategy is the actual helm of egovernance. Government is tasked to spearhead this project especially where security and economic control is concerned. This means making the public a complete fabric through which egovernance can easily thrive. The gaps exhibited in the extract above need patching. Certain sectors of the economy are IT literate, others have a complete phobia.
These need to be brought on board. Given our low ereadiness index (of 0.3133 thus its position of 155 or 133 of the 198 countries depending on the study), there is still a long way to go in this aspect. There is need for thorough digital advancement which should not only be zeroed to IT but also other, complementary sectors such as the private sector and businesses, education, support for innovation, legal frameworks, and government policy and vision. However, the position of the private sector operatives has more attachment to all portions of this linkage for it has had a great contribution in those sections of the citizenry in which egovernance has acceptance; it should thus not be taken for granted in this puzzle.
Private companies can be better at expanding and creating of a better widely distributed network and all government would have to do is to extend into those areas currently unreachable and in the meantime consolidate the areas currently occupied by those private sector links. The private sector is better at marketing than the government, minds costs and is more biased to results. it’s the best partner in this endeavor. Obviously this could give these private firms business. Banks are already reaping huge from the online payments of the etax system.
The Other Stakeholders component of the model has barely been catered for. Actually the private sector, being the service provider, offers a more adequate solution to their needs. These constitute missions/emissaries, NGOs, chosen persons and other categorical entities that are directly and or indirectly of influence in instituting Uganda’s egovernance.
Whereas the GoU has a broad master plan for IT, it can be better as a guide and a setter for standards for quality. This is where NITA would have been most tasked. The tasks of spreading the network, upgrade of bandwidth capacity, network plans would have been expanded better through the private sector and only where failure is sensed should government come in; else it should visualize itself as a mere regulator through its UCC and other policy bodies.
A CASE OF THE eTAX SYSTEM:
The public is yet to appreciate our new etax administration system for example. The system is one of the biggest innovations the government of Uganda has ever put up in its first ever public services under egovernance that fully involve the citizenry. System wise perfect( though adaptive, corrective, perfective maintenance cannot be dodged), the project is functional and required resources have been put in place in its support.
While a section of the public has viewed it as a means of exploiting it further, some individuals have silently appreciated the innovation. These systems are actually made to simplify government processes, reduce time, corruption and also usher in efficiency. This system brings all tax information, registration, returns and payments processing processes at the taxpayer’s computer with ease (as long as he is connected to the internet).
With the rate at which internet products are adopted, this project is going to be one trophy winner in GoU’s egovernance services basket. The product is steadily adopted by the urban literate and semi literate. Other issues may stall such other planned projects for example the fibre optic project whose effects are stagnating related projects that were planned in a start to start fashion with a hope that Internet connections are going to get better.
GETTING eGOVERNANCE PERFORM TO EXPECTIONS
There is need to Ugandanise the services that Uganda’s egovernance provides. The mere implementation of systems that have elsewhere worked may not succeed, for these systems have been successful only in areas they were designed to serve (Heeks, 2002). However, the process of Ugandanising should not contradict ground principles but, adhere to the norms and protocols of the discipline. For, example, the etax web portal that administers Uganda’s domestic taxes (and TEVIES for customs) should have pages translated in Swahili and Luganda, and the most widely used regional/local languages. This calls for a mere alteration of the text that appears on the WebPages, but not the code.
THE EGOVERNANCE LEARNING CURVE
There should be coordinated inter-twinned implementation of these projects. Where there have been related implementations, the lessons learnt in such project should be carried onto the next project on course. The largest such egovernance project is the URA ITAS. This has had adequate funding of over UGX from government through the MoFEP. A similar IFMS project funded by World Bank was earlier implemented under MoFEP and has been great success.
It appears though, the success stories of this sort have only appeared in selected sectors of interest given the adequate funding. It becomes paramount that these successes so far achieved and the methods used to achieve them are turned into a thorough methodology of doing things; that they may be used in future such similar project executions.
COST Vs BENEFIT
If the lessons learnt in these projects be applied in the subsequent projects, the cost of future complementary expansionist implementations shall be seen to marginally fall. And where there such continued learning and sharing, an overwhelming synergy in government services is imminent which shall catapult into cost reduction on the side of government yet quality shall be improved.
It took a cost of Ugx.16.9 billion to contract KDN to connect Kampala to Katuna by 2010 but the project come to a halt due to costs there were not earlier foreseen. Some terrain has been found to be too rocky and hard which has made the whole job expensive. Even the 23 contractors who were hired for each 23Km are yet to finalize the project work.
This has led the project costs and time schedules earlier predicted to shoot outside perceived ranges. This can be made a learning experience; that costs faced in this hullabaloo could be avoided in the future by properly approximating such costs so as to make advanced planning.
A NATIONAL DATABASE
The proposed networking of all sub-counties in the national ICT policy is yet to be realized. E-governance in such a structure would best rely on a proper national database whose creation has been long overdue in Uganda. The success of complementing e-governance projects requires that users be registered onto the system on a shared national platform. This means that an already functional national database has to be in place if success is to be realized. However, the circumstances of the national ID project have been highly questionable with the hiring and management in this project posing questions.
This is in contravention of the first CSF for egovernance, that despite though there is political will, Uganda has faulted at the administrative and project management aspects of institutionalizing egovernance in the country (Subhash, 2006). This has made the process sluggish in execution; worse still, an olden less efficient bar code technology has been procured yet the more efficient smart card technology would have been more preferable. There also seem to be lack of coordination of activities as each department seems to be creating its own register.
However, it should not be assumed that the national ID shall solve all the problems. Some countries like USA, Canada, Newzealand and Australia do not use such IDs but are better organized. Studies of their hiccups that have prompted countries like Australia to drop them would have been ascertained first. Given that we do not have all records of newborns in the country, it becomes hard to track authenticity of bio data for some persons.
If small databases like the Voters Register and Passports Database have been fumbled with, finding one person with more than one card, it leaves a lot of doubt as to whether these issues shall be addressed in this new venture which is still under the same management. Actually it shall create more problems than the state can handle if dealt with the same way.
Lands Registration
Ministry of Lands has got a grant to create a database for all land owners in the country. This is expected to help clear land wrangles and conflicts in ownership and or simplify detection of forgeries. This is intended to speed up land transfer procedures and curb corruption. This proposed system is however, better off if made dependent on the national register yet to be done such that the rightful nationally registered ownership names are referenced with the land tittles; else individuals are likely to end up owning land tittles unscrupulously using different names. In the same way such payments would be made to leave a record in URA’s online payments database. If all the other databases are made dependent on the national register these duplicity checks shall be easily emphasized. It would also establish coordination between departments and thus stop delays and replication of tasks and thus reduce time and costs (Subhash, 2006).
Voters Registration
In the same way the voters register currently being upgraded would be better if developed from the national register. A look into the registration process portrays laxity on the side of the implementers. This database is a crucial national issue for economic, security and planning mechanisms.
Rather than optional, it should be made a legal obligation of each and every Ugandan to have their name and all required details on this database before a particular date. This registration should be made compulsory such that no-one is left out on the database. Failure should have a severe punishment in Ugandan court of law; for the offender is a great hindrance to our progress.
Such compulsory schemes have forcefully taught people to save else our savings culture would be worse even though we remain the worst in the EAC; immunization campaigns never succeeded before until parents faced prison on failure to immunize kids; UPE would not have achieved its currently proclaimed success if parents weren't made to realize the legal threat it meant if they failed to send their children to school. The basis of this argument is, at times the citizenry takes long to realize the broad national plan and it may take the government another line of initiative to achieve this desired goal(just so long as its a positive plan).
Areas of Correction
However in a bid to reduce manpower costs, semi illiterate/unknowledgeable persons have been hired to carry out the activities of the national ID projects. A visit at Kireka Update Registration Centre (6th June 2010) exposed to me inexperienced data capture officers who could take atleast 5secs to find a key on a laptop. If this example exhibits the kind of personnel who were hired for this project, then this entire activity is destined for ruins.
THE FUTURE OF eGOVERNANCE
Suitability of MPLS
The idea to adopt the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology for all national projects in the national ICT projects was a landmark step. This is a manageable standards-approved technology for speeding up network traffic flow through creating a specific path for a given sequence of packets, identified by a label put in each packet. This saves the time needed for a router to look up the address to the next node to forward the packet to. Because it works with the Internet Protocol (IP), Asynchronous Transport Mode (ATM), and Frame Relay network protocols. which are Uganda’s existent technologies it is the most appropriate because it does not necessarily call for full new network infrastructure, rendering it cost saving.
For these reasons, the technique is expected to be readily adopted as the Ugandan network begins to carry more and different mixtures of traffic.
This view has been emphasized because the existing investment in Frame Relay equipment can be leveraged with MPLS without any further modifications. Establishing the MPLS core is not expected to interfere with current functioning of the Frame Relay network or any other infrastructure that may come up in the future. This will easily support the existing Virtual Private Networking (VPN) for multiple protocols –IP and non-IP based traffic. It also provides same or better level of security as existing Frame Relay Networks.
Monitoring & Evaluation
Establishing a monitoring measurement and evaluation strategy of creating awareness and sensitizing of nationals about those national projects set up. These should be unique to every sub project set up at the various stages of execution. This can encourage follow up and patch work can easily be done if there is need to correct faults in case a thing goes wrong. Knowing these pillars could create a measuring rod onto which the success of a specific project can be tagged.
The Envisioned University
The Ministry of ICT should steadfastly work on the establishment of the envisioned ICT University which shall breed the manpower the required for running egovernment structures put up and also ensure a continued supply of such manpower for the daily running and maintenance of government applications and planning for any future needs.
Required Infrastructure
It would also be important that the data systems infrastructure, the legal infrastructure, the institutional infrastructure, the human infrastructure ready, the technological infrastructure, the leadership and strategic thinking are made ready if we are to succeed in rolling out fully operational egovernance systems (Heeks, 2002). Uganda has majorly emphasized the technological infrastructure yet this spectrum in entirety is e the foundation onto which successful egovernance thrives and is candidly paramount to exist if all preceding and forthcoming efforts are not to be destined for ruins.
SUMMARY
If Uganda is to wait for pure infrastructure so as to modify to the advanced forms of governance to which the entire world is destined, it may take us another century. So, it would be rather better to take on board those areas that are ready as we await the eventual development of the currently under-developed sectors by osmosis. But as we try to adopt these structures we should make sure they do not destroy us instead.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Civic education classes may not be enough to get the public on the egovernment bandwagon, transparency too. The government must come clean of all allegations of misconduct in the awarding of contracts for projects meant to establish egovernance in the country. There is need for accountability and transparency on how such taxpayers’ money as been spent on such projects. When the public is satisfied through this, a psychological goal would have been achieved; that these projects are done in good faith and for the good of the citizens but not individual gains. Then egovernance shall become our project instead of their project.
There is need to apply both the top-bottom and bottom-up diffusion of egovernance into the public such that it does not turn out imposed onto the public from senior administrative levels. For example, the Inspector General of Government (IGG) website in Uganda promotes a bottom-up approach where online petitioning and reporting of offences especially on corruption (IGG, 2008). The situation has been top bottom. Thus, the trickle down of egovernance to the grassroot levels where it is most needed may not be easily successful if now done in a two way fashion; such that the two intersect within. There is need to revitalize community centres for such purposes, else the trajectory the envisioned citizen goodwill and participation in egovernance shall remain obscured.
The duplication of costs is instead stalling the system. For example the existence of UCC, The Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (UNCST), NITA which nearly play a similar role. This duplicity of functions complicates the merging of activities to a common goal which instead stalls purpose.
There is need to operationalise the egovernance facilitating policies put on paper. The Rural Communications Development Policy, the National Broadcasting Policy, the e-Government Strategy Framework, the Electronic Media Act, the Uganda Communications Commission Act (UCC, 2000), and Right of access to information - Article 41 (Government of Uganda, 2005) have been drafted and are good legislations but have not been put to useful usage leaving them in print. The projection of establishing PoPs in selected sub-counties by 2006 is one example of such policies that hit a snag.
There is need to provide online services on the portals established by these government agencies. For example the services page for the ministry of Foreign Affairs website is Blank (see http://www.mofa.go.ug/index.php/services). The portals are merely informative pages with no other services for visitors to use. The Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs site should for example set up an online library on its http://www.justice.go.ug/library.htm page instead of inviting people to its time restricted small library. There is need for online submission for a, downloadable materials and constant update of these sites (Kaaya, 2004).
These pages should be modified to the extent of offering the services which they are currently merely listing on their pages. Moreover these sites lack terms and conditions plus disclaimers which are necessary to imbue trust in the users of these sites when dealing with the government otherwise spoofers are a common threat (Edgar Napoleon et al, 2010).
Parastatals have to a certain extent achieved this; passengers can view the various flight schedules from CAA’s http://www.caa.co.ug/schedules.php by selecting an airline of their choice and day, UNRA, URA accept online job application and a few other agencies.
KEY TO OTHER SECTORS
There is need for interoperability between the sub-governmental sectors within the East African regional blocks. Of all East African States, Uganda has adopted an old and unique technology which shall in a way complicate the integration of these intra-governmental systems when the East African Community gets to an info sharing level. As for information sharing, Revenue Bodies have set the pace of sharing information in regard to merchandise passing through one partner state to the other Continued…..
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
DESIGN SAMPLE AND PROCEDURE
This study shall adopt a qualitative research design in which samples shall be chosen for interviewing to determine the relevance of egovernance strategies deployed in the various sectoral government agencies and even the collaborative private and non-governmental bodies. The results shall be methodical interpretations of the views expressed from the interviewees.
This will involve persons from Telecommunication bodies (which are key partners in this issue), Government Administrators (who shall be on the forefront of service delivery), Lay citizens (who are the consumers) and government policy makers (who are the implementers). These shall be online interactions and the interview questionnaires shall be just emailed to these parties. The efficiency of their response to these online chats too, has an implication on the ereadiness of these persons for egovernance kick-off.
Data shall be collected in text format and to create an even conclusion of these results multiple emailed questionnaires were sent out to chosen respondents from whom views were sought.
REFERENCES:
Accenture, 2009. From e-Government to e-Governance, Using new technologies to strengthen relationships with citizens.
Economist Intelligence Unit (June 2009) E-readiness rankings 2009, The usage imperative, London WC1R 4HQ United Kingdom
Lennart Nordfors, Bo Ericson Hemming Lindell & Jacob Lapidus, Egovernance for Tomorrow, VINNOVA in November 2009
Isaac Olawale Albert (2009). Whose e-governance? A critique of online citizen engagement in Africa,
Kaaya, J. (2004) “Implementing e-government services in East Africa: Assessing status through content analysis of government websites”, Electronic Journal of e-Government, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 39-54.
Megatech Inc. (2009). The national ICT Master Plan and E-Government Network Feasibility Study In Uganda, MPLS 102-110, NMO 162-178
Subhash Bhatnagar, ISGIA, World Bank. Opportunities and Challenges in Egovernance
Subhash Bhatnagar. (2006). Paving the Road towards Pro-poor e-Governance: Findings and Observations from Asia-Pacific Case Studies
Richard Heeks (2002). egovernment in Africa: Promise and Practice, Slow Diffusion of egovernance in Africa, Paper No.13, Page 3, 11-12
Sameer (2007), National Id: A solution or a problem?
Asiimwe, E, N and Lim, N. (2010) “Usability of Government Websites in Uganda” Electronic Journal of e-Government Volume 8 Issue 1 2010, (pp1 - 12), available online at www.ejeg.com
Vikas Kanungo, Citizen Centric e-Governance in India, Society for Promotion of e-governance
Trond Arne Undheim and Michael Blakemore(2006), eGovernment strategy across Europe - a bricolage responding to societal challenges. Page 6
Glossary
CSF Critical Success Factor
GOU Government of Uganda
IGF Internet Government Forum
MOICT Ministry of Information and Communication Technology
MPLS Multi Protocol Label Switching
NMO Network Management Office
NITA National Information Technology Authority
PoP Point of Presence
UCC Uganda Communication Commission
URA Uganda Revenue Authority
QUESTIONNAIRE:
My name is Masembe Michael an academic staff of Makerere University Business School. I am carrying out a research about the suitability of egovernance strategies so far adopted by the government of Uganda. This research is purely and purposefully academic. You are requested to provide responses to the questions addressed to you.
Respondents’ Details:
Names: …………………………………………
Age: …………………………………………
Residence: …………………………………………
Occupation: …………………………………………
1. Please answer appropriately by ticking or filling in the space (as deemed necessary)
2. Have you ever had an online government service? □Yes □ No
3. If yes, how was the service? □ Easy □ Hard □ Very Complicated
4. What service was it? ........................................................................................................................ ......... ..... ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................
5. 3. a) When did you carryout this transaction? ..........................................................................................................
6. How often do you access internet? □ Everyday □ Once a Week □ Twice a Week □ After a Fortnight
7. How do you find internet prices? □ Expensive □ Fair □ Cheap
8. How do you access the internet? □ At work □ In a café □ In a government centre
9. Do you have an email account? □Yes □ No
10. What is your computer literacy level? □ Basic □ Moderate □ Expert
11. Have you registered to any electronic government register like for voting? □Yes □ No
12. What do you recommend should be done to improve electronic government services? …………………………... … …………………………………………………… ……………………………………………… ……. ……... ………………………………………….………………………………………………………… ………… …… ………..……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
