KITGUM – The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) through its Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF) launched a one-stop community centre in Kitgum on Thursday, June 27, to provide information for citizens on public services.
Citizens can now get information on a wide range of e-government services and administrative procedures by using the newly launched facility. The centre, dubbed ” public information centre”, has a capacity to handle 160 people a day.
The service, which is entirely free aims to respond to any citizen query, and to encourage them to uptake online government services including URA returns, e-payments, e-health, e-education among others.
Others including registering/updating National ID biodata, driving permits renewal, shopping online, applying for public jobs among others which have proved difficult in the past days because of long distances and corruption. RCDF director Mr Nyombi Tembo said that the government is aiming to make it easier for citizens to access and understand government services.
“We have found out that everywhere we have been people are welcoming this kind of idea. So as RCDF, we decided to expand this project and that’s why next financial year, we are doing seven other projects, then ten the following year and then we shall reach out to all Postal outlets and public libraries in the country,” he noted.
Asked on the criteria before picking the four centres, Mr Nyombi Tembo said the RCDF and Posta Uganda looked at places which had low uptake of ICTs. These included Kitgum, Kasese, Mubende and Moroto.
He said the core idea is to provide citizens access to knowledge on top of social interactions. “They will get agricultural, health and all other forms of content because they will have a chance to access whatever knowledge they want to access,” he said.
THE COMMUNICATIONS BLOG 
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