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Sep 2 2004

Ugandan telecommunications companies MTN, UTL and CELTEL have handed over contributions totalling over sh3.3b to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) towards the Rural Comm-unications Development Fund (RCDF).

The UCC executive director, Patrick Masambu, while receiving the dummy cheques from the three companies on Wednesday, said US$887,178 (about sh1.5b) had been disbursed towards the RCDF project. Another sh1.38b has been committed to start up other RCDF projects.

Masambu said by the end of 2005, every sub-county in Uganda would have a public pay phone, while every district would have Internet access.

The three companies are required by law to make 1% contribution of their annual gross income towards the RCDF.

The chief operations officer of MTN Uganda, Serame Taukobong, presented a cheque of sh2,156,810,000.

UTL's chief commercial officer Faisal Ijaz Khan handed over a cheque of sh1,029,984,762 while Celtel's company secretary David Sserunjogi handed over a sh153,724,840 cheque.

Masambu said the implementation of the start-up projects was on course since its launch in February 2003, with 29 districts so far having ICT training centres, 26 with district information portals, 21 districts with Internet Cafes and 66 locations with public payphones.