{UAH} UTL PLUNDER AND MUSEVENI'S "ENDOBO" ICT POLICY.

Picture: Uganda Telecom offices in Kampala. (Photo credit: East African Vanguard)

Fellow citizens,

Some of you might remember last month when I questioned how the Auditor general, the Attorney General, his deputy and the appointed company Administrator could all agree not to conduct an audit of Uganda Telecom Limited yet also claim to be looking for an investor for the company.

The simple fact I stated against this advisory was that any international businessman investing in any company would first want to know it's true present state, and therefore establish it's true current value before buying into the business venture with their hard earned cash. How will a purchasing price be established and negotiated without a full audit of the company and a full physical verification of that audit by the interested investor?

This is Africa! A continent where due diligence is the most precious commodity in business.

Finally now State House seems to be coming to their senses on this matter by also demanding that the state company be audited.

However it is shocking that anti-investment advisories and practices were what an entire government was ignorantly and/or deliberately pursuing in broad daylight, possibly for ulterior corrupt purposes until someone raised the alarm publicly. Yet these are officials appointed and mandated to see the success of the service delivery for which state companies were established and maintained decades ago by previous governments to serve the people of Uganda.

Had private telecoms companies not been around today to provide telecommunications, internet and ICT services, clearly a corrupt regime can not be depended on for the delivery of the service to the people of this country. It is therefore also quite foreseeable what will happen to the new UTL plan  to build a smartphone assembly plant. First of all which customers trust their brand anymore in Uganda today compared with all the global competition that exists in the smartphone market as we speak, most of which are readily available with the countless retailers across the country at affordable prices.

Which makes me wonder if government first conducted a market research and business plan before taking the decision to probably waste billions of  taxpayers money by starting to assemble UTL smartphone's for the local and regional market. Or was it just for the temporary political colloquial prestige that "Museveni assembles smartphone's". If that is the thinking behind the so-called "Uganda's new ICT Revolution", I hope market realities sink in before it's too late.

A revolution is a paradigm shift where we think big and ahead so as to make the giant strides required towards a new competitive level in not only the product but also it's market.

I am not an emptihead who is just politicking for cheap popularity by always attacking any and all government actions.

Many so-called activists and politicians out there are unable to table simple, credible workable solutions that move the country forward.

For that matter, and bearing in mind that Uganda is already partnering with Chinese giant Huawei to establish it's ICT infrastructure, and Huawei being one of the global leaders in developing 5g networks, call me and I would introduce concerned officials to a new company that has just produced the first 5g smartphone in the western hemisphere. Together, the 5g ICT infrastructure and the 5g smartphone are meant for each other.

The new smartphone product comes equipped with record-breaking storage capacity of 1TB, meaning users will never run out of storage, and a 4K ultra high-definition screen.

It has a sleek design, and will also come with magnetic resonance capability, allowing users to charge multiple smart appliances from a Super Base Charger. It is also built to work on every mobile operator in the world, comes with waterproof capability, strong data security features and is said to be the most technically advanced device today for the most affordable price.

These are features of interest to todays customers in Uganda, in the region, the continent  and even around the world.

And may make them purposely choose this particular product over another leading competitor's product. Why can't we think of competing at that level?

Being a new little-known company, the maker of this product is surely keen on making market inroads internationally so as to take a share of the global smartphone market from today's market leaders.

For the record, this new company is black-owned. Which is a fact that might help God willing since we are all from the same mother continent and there are many good people out there who want to do something meaningful and productive with the industrious, entrepreneurial and hardworking people in Africa.

In any case we would be better off discussing assembly plant partnerships and technology/skills transfer with such advanced companies and their products.

What I am saying is that we not only have to style up in our thinking, Uganda's national ICT vision and policy has to be big, bold, and innovatively market- driven, rather than just dash to assemble some endobo smartphone for political reasons when even Ugandans themselves might choose to forego our current cride endobo smartphone assembly project from the onset simply because there are so many other similar, better, more reliable and/or more affordable products on the maket already. Basically an already saturated niche.

Meanwhile, the reported looting of UTL assets (and land) by the corrupt regime might not allow for any visionary futuristic thinking. In fact they seem to be busy collapsing the company for personal gain rather than building it to greater sustainable heights. The corruption rot, though known to the public, might not get a chance to be expunged and people held accountable unless the Auditor General now conducts a proper, much needed full audit of the state company. In fact having compromised himself in his controversial advisory against an audit, it might be prudent to ensure that a new external neutral party conduct an independent audit on his behalf for purposes of transparency and credibility of the process.

Signed: Hussein Lumumba Amin

Date: 18/07/2019

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- Latest story that Museveni now requests UTL Audit: https://chimpreports.com/museveni-writes-to-anite-audit-utl/

- Issues I raised publicly recently regarding UTL mismanagement: http://ugandansatheart.blogspot.com/2019/06/uah-uganda-telecom-mismanagement-but.html

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