Kampala — The Government has hired InterGlobal Services, an American company, to build and operate the first call centres.

The call centres also known as outsourcing centres, have been increasingly popular.

With outsourcing, companies contract out some functions to other companies. Since it is expensive to maintain call centre equipment and staff, firms choose to outsource their telephone functions to an external call centre.

Wallace Andrews, the InterGlobal president and chief executive, said in an interview last week that training of staff to work in the call centres had started.

He said the first call centre would be launched in March after the first batch of employees complete training.

"It is the vision of the Uganda government to become a leading contender in the global outsourcing industry.

"Uganda has the basic requirements for these jobs. We believe Uganda will be able to compete for global outsourcing opportunities," he said.

India, China, the Philippines and other Asian countries are leading in the outsourcing industry, but Wallace believes Africa could overtake them.

"Africa, and Uganda in particular have a large educated population that speaks good English. This is the advantage you have over Asia. All you need is full government support and you could be the leaders in this industry some day. We are starting where Asia was a decade ago, but we shall get there," Andrews said.

The first e-learning training centre has been opened in Jinja, with capacity to train 65 people per session. There are plans to open up more centres in other parts of the country soon.

The e-learning centres will be operated by GMC-Tin Uganda.

Overall, call centres employ between 400 and 1,000 people. In India, a new call centre is opened every 50 days, according to statistics.

"Government has put in place a programme through which people can tap into over 400 career-based courses. Once the people are trained, then they qualify for jobs in the call centers," Andrews, said.