A study/ Research that is aimed at interrogating the role of internet and digitization in improving service delivery among government institutions, has been launched.
The research is being carried out by Evidence and Methods Lab, a civic technology initiative working in the areas of access to information, accountability and Social Justice.
Speaking at the launch, Michael Katagaya, the team Leader at Evidence and Methods Lab. said the two-year project, will help identify the key stakeholders and what they are doing in terms of internet usage for service provision, the challenges, loopholes and how this can be improved.
“We shall go to government institutions, see how they are using internet to provide services, the challenges they face, but also find ways how this can be improved,” he noted.
Adding, “We don’t see why we don’t some of the police services in that to report a case, a person can just use the internet, lodge a case, follow up to see where investigations have reached but also be summoned to appear in court to testify using the internet. This way, even people who are very far from police stations and those who can’t afford transport can be served well but also do away with corruption,.”
He noted that if the internet and digital space is effectively used by government, this can help wipe away corruption in some ministries and departments.
“Some government officials deliberately frustrate digitization because the manual processes ensure they thrive on corruption. For example if in the lands office processes are done via the internet, human interaction is done away with and the middlemen would be kicked out and hence losing out. The officials who benefit from this racket, tend to frustrate the system,”Katagaya said.
He noted that access to internet has grown in in Uganda, adding that with the study, “we want to show there is an opportunity to improve service delivery and accountability using the internet. We want to show government can scale up the use of internet and digitization to improve services to the citizens,”
Meanwhile, Edgar Kuhimbisa, the technical lead in charge of e-justice and digital transformation at the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, said the study would help inform government decision in regards the use of internet to improve service delivery.
He noted that currently government is standardizing the data ecosystem.
“We are trying to make sure we capture your data once and use it as many times. In the foreseeable future we are going to eliminate the digital silos where everyone keeps the same kind of information. We will have an integrated government digital ecosystem that wherever you go, either to the bank , processing land title, processing driver’s licence or the passport, there is no need of you moving around with document because it is already captured and can reuse it for government e-services platform.,”Kuhimbisa said.
He said this is already being done in the passport office where your NIN is only required needed while registering for a Passport.
“They used to ask for LC1 letters, but with digitization, they will ask for your NIN, as government we are working on having your data at a central system,” he said.
