Dorothy Nakaweesi
11 December 2007
Kampala — IN an effort to increase the use and distribution of computers in the country, the government and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation are in talks to form a public-private partnership to set up a computer refurbishing plant that will substantially reduce the cost of a computer.
"In a few months Ugandans will have access to PC at a cheaper target price of only $100 (Shs170, 000) and some of these PCs have already reached in the country," Mr Patrick Bitature, the chairman of Uganda Investments, said.
He said the plant is expected to have a refurbishing capacity of 10,000 PCs per year.
Mr Bitature said if the project materialises it will be beneficial to all Ugandans including those in the rural area. "Information and Communication Technology is probably the single most important tool one can embrace other than education, for development. Poverty is rooted in ignorance," he said.
One of the avenues is to see the price of a single computer go down to about $100 (Shs170, 000). Currently the market price of a brand new PC is rated at Shs1.5 million ($882) and Shs800, 000 ($470) depending on the type and durability.
In Uganda there about with a population close to 30 million people, about 120,000 people can get access to a PC but only 25,000 are registered by the subscribers with all the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Mr Bitature said: "Uganda still has the opportunity to exploit the ICTs fully to reduce on the over dependency on agriculture to at least 50 percent".
The government recently scrapped off Value Added Tax on computer imports to increase computer availability in the country.
Currently the national fibre-optic backbone infrastructure is being rolled out at a cost of more than $106 million (Shs175 billion). This followed the Uganda's signing of a deal with the government of China. A Chinese company, Huaiwei Technologies was assigned to do the job slated to be complete in less than or a year's time.
The East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), the landmark fibre-optic cable project that will connect 22 coastal and land-locked African countries to each other and the rest of the world with high-quality Internet.
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