Imagine how cheap and time saving it would be to get information from the district website for a job seeker, a company looking for tender, an investor looking for investment opportunities and a journalist looking for news.
Which investor can stand the hustle of moving, for instance to the Western Uganda rural district of Bundibugyo traversing through the mountainous poor roads looking for investment opportunities? And if he/she doesn’t go there, who loses?
A simple ‘click’ to a district website, unlocks all its potentials to whoever is interested in just seconds.
A website also provides many online free services a district can utilize to attract investments, fundraise for funds to manage a catastrophe, attract international development organizations, etc which at the end of the day improves on the livelihoods of the people. Google maps is one of them which can help a given district locate the investment needs of particular area complete with contact information. Such information helps an investor get background information and weighs the options first before wasting his/her fuel, time and energy moving to particular area. Through internet searches, some investors can actually land on investment opportunities accidentally in a given district because of a mere web presence.
Of course, many policy makers at the national and district levels are computer illiterate and need a lot of effort to convince them avail funds for such online projects. Even if such funds are availed, many district information officers lack skills in website management, also districts lack funds to employ ICT officers and therefore, they (districts) always seek the services of ICT experts who charge huge sums of money coupled with kick backs which makes it hard to sustain.
As a result of the above, the website becomes almost irrelevant like most government departments websites which are characterized with outdated information. Hahaha! I was sharing with a friend recently who works in a rural district in Western Uganda. His district chairperson was humiliated recently at an international ICT workshop after the district website was opened to the workshop participants with a photo and profile of the previous district boss and his former fierce political opponent as the current district chairperson.
Apart from reducing on the humiliations, timely and accurate information on the internet reduces on the workload for the district staff and saves the environment because car fuel which emits carbon dioxide to the atmosphere causing global warming will not be unnecessarily wasted for someone looking for information related to the district.
Besides, it is another way of safely and permanently keeping records. Records archived on the website are easy to access and face few threats to destruction for instance information regarding a tender
which was advertised four years ago will only be a search away on the district website making it more easy than unpacking boxes of papers to look for it.
God forbid! Think of fire gutting down the office, and destroying ‘a million dollar’ documents with no back up on the internet or being stolen by thieves or corrupt officers who want to hide evidence. Won’t it be a disastrous loss?
A website is also an avenue to ensure that leaders are accountable to the people. If properly updated people will get an opportunity to monitor funds and projects implemented by the district through press
releases, downloads of reports, news, etc. If the district leadership contacts are well posted on the internet, it helps bridge the communication gap between the people and their leaders.
I know what the district technical staff are going through during such an election period as the district politician’s demand for reports to account to the people in return for votes. Imagine, if the reports were well arranged on the district website, how easy it would be for them to account to their electorates. Mind you! A lot of Uganda print and broadcast journalists get information for their stories through online research therefore, online presence would actually simply the work of the politicians and the district technical staff and resources which would otherwise be spent paying for radio programs because from point A, the people would be awash with information regarding the work of the district leadership if the website technical staff consistently uploads press releases and reports for the convenience of both print and broadcast journalists.
As the 2011 Uganda general elections approaches, you have to critically analyze the manifestos of the political candidates, ask them questions and see what they have to offer as regards information dissemination and internet presence and then cast your vote.
Of course, many people in Uganda are computer illiterate and will only vote those who take them for bull roasting, buys them alcohol, soap and sugar without caring much about web presence of their districts and its benefits to them. The educated should think of how a website will help change the lives of their parents, neighbors, relatives, etc after attracting an investor who constructs a processing factory for their tomatoes. That line of thinking will help them sensitize people to enable them make better decisions when casting their votes.
For policy makers, the benefits of increasing funding for ICT’s especially for staff training, paying for internet access, website costs and of course buying computers are enormous. Therefore, this is a humble appeal to the policy makers to do the needful! Wikipedia, news websites, tour and travel companies’ websites and websites of NGO’s have done a good job to avail information regarding particular districts on the internet. But, we should not over depend on them because their interests, NOT the interests of particular districts take first priority.
