The Parliamentary Committee on ICT has recommended several reforms meant to eliminate fraud and save telecom subscribers from unsatisfactory and unfair service delivery in the telecommunication industry.
These include among others, the popularization of NetQ-UG, an application developed by the Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) to monitor the quality of telecom services by end users of communication services to independently monitor and provide feedback on the quality of voice and data services.
The committee recommended that UCC enhances engagements with the government to reconsider some of the taxes associated with data services and communication assets.
Also, with tax reduction eventually trickling to the final consumer of the telecommunication and television services, UCC should support and reinforce the call of telecommunication operators to Umeme to extend grid electricity to tower sites or base stations to reduce the cost of purchase of diesel for sites and contracts for the transportation of fuel to the sites for generators, which reduction in costs would reflect in payments by the customers.
Further, the committee recommended a National Policy on unified planning of data transmission and telecommunication infrastructure sharing by the National Information Technology Authority - NITA Uganda, and all licenses for voice, data, and video signals should be urgently enacted.
The MPs also recommended that the government should enforce the National Payments Act, 2020 as enacted to ensure more public sensitization about the procedures for the beneficiaries to access the money on the mobile money account of the deceased subscribers.
Also, that the Central Bank come up with a policy that will provide for uniformity while determining the rates that the telecommunications companies charge the customers while providing the different services.
Other recommendations are that mobile money providers should also establish a system that issues automatic receipts to customers in real-time to improve the security of mobile money transactions since the receipts can capture essential details of each transaction.
According to the committee, UCC should enhance and increase the mobilization and sensitization of users to make better data purchases and utilization choices through community, radio, and television shows and broadcasts.
The regulatory body is required to enhance sensitization of the public on the various data facilities (bundles) available for use while encouraging friendlier bundle subscriptions.
Moses Magogo, the ICT Committee Chairperson pointed out that if the telecom operators introduce NetQ-UG, it would enable end users of communication services to independently monitor and provide feedback on the quality of voice and data services telecom operators are providing to Ugandans.
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa tasked UCC to engage the companies in question to exclusively provide value-for-money services to the consumers in the country.
