The National Information Technology Authority – Uganda (NITA -U) has reduced certification fees for local IT companies under its IT Certification Project in order to encourage local IT firms to build capacity and compete for available contracts.
What is NITA Uganda’s IT Certification project?
This is a standardisation process that outlines the minimum acceptable standards for IT stakeholders and used to certify eligible entities to applicable international standards.
The IT Certification project is formulated for standardisation in the planning, acquisition, implementation, delivery, support and maintenance of Information technology equipment and services to ensure uniformity in quality, adequacy and reliability of Information technology usage throughout Uganda, according to NITA-U
NITA-U uses this to issue conformity certificates to various entities that meet the eligibility criteria.
The four IT domains covered are IT Service providers, IT Training institutions, Individual IT Service Providers and finally IT Products specifically E-Transactions providers.
The waived charges currently stand at UGX 70,000 for startups, as application fees while other related costs like audit fees are paid for by contributions from bigger service providers, according to the Daily Monitor quoting Mr Fredrick Kitoogo, the Director of Planning, Research and Development at NITA-U.
This is to encourage local IT firms to develop standard processes, personnel and technology to compete favourably as most projects are given to foreign service providers, with the capacity to provide these services.
Mr Fredrick added that the new certification structure will build local capacity and create an environment through which foreign companies can partner with local companies for IT-related contracts.
