NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, April 24, 2015

Members of Parliament grilled Information, Communication Technology (ICT) state minister, Nyombi Thembo over lack of a law to regulate mobile money services and safeguard clients’ money.

The members of the committee on ICT also questioned Nyombi on Thursday about lack of a communications tribunal, and yet, according to them, telephone companies operating in the country have a lot to answer.

The concerned law makers raised several concerns to do with mobile money services and pointed out that it is disheartening to see that up to now, there is no legal framework to streamline the service.

Central Bank Governor, Tumusiime Mutebile, had in a meeting with the ICT committee in February conceded that there was need for a law to streamline the bank’s supervisory role over mobile money services operated by telecom companies.

Currently, mobile money operations, an e-money financial service that has 18 million registered users in Uganda, has no clear law regulating it. BoU relies on its 2013 regulations about the business to keep tabs on it.

However, these regulations have no legal effect. According to the executive director of supervision at BoU, Justine Bagyenda, The Central Bank recently wrote to the Solicitor General, seeking legal opinion over the matter.