How the Cellular Phone Industry is Disrupting General Happiness in Uganda

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The proliferation of Cell phone companies in my country is usually considered by Politicians and Economists as indicators of economic growth and development. Politicians especially, have successfully made political capital out of this situation and occasionally, many actually have gotten votes because they make people believe that they indeed, ushered in this era of mobile phones.

A few days ago, there was fanfare in my city, when a new cell phone provider, the Orange Telecoms company got an office set up in Kampala. It is a French company that is trying to promise Ugandans heaven on earth in the Industry. Already Uganda boasts of cell phone companies like MTN, Uganda Telecoms, Zaine, Warid, and now Orange Telecoms. Much as many Ugandans of all walks of life have embraced cell phone use, there is the unpleasant side of the mushrooming cellular phone companies that many who are in the know don’t  want to talk about.

Uganda is a poor country where a poor man lives on less than a dollar a day! The surprising thing about this biting poverty level in my country vis a vis the use of mobile phones is that a poor man who cannot afford a decent meal for his family somehow, finds money to buy credit for his cell phone daily. This has sucked in a dangerous habit into most of the Ugandan families and the casualties here are the children who have to go empty stomachs because the meagre resources are being misused to buy air time for cell phones.

The other socially destructive side of cellular phones here in my country is how fast it is breaking up marriages. Every other day, a woman is being put to task to give an accurate account of who called her cell phone number. Explanations that are not clear are met with battering leading to  pure domestic violence. The truth however, is that cell phones have become an easy approach for amorous men to catch their sexual prey regardless of whether they are married or not and the result is increasing family discord and occasionally death.

Perhaps one of the reasons Ugandans curse this wonderful communication device lies in the extent to which it has perfected criminality. Robbery of Bullion vehicles carrying money between regions in my country is now properly coordinated by cell phones wielding robbers. People who draw large sums of money from banks are easily robbed before they rich their destinations because the network of thieves track all their movements using cellular phones.

For some Ugandans, the cellular phone companies may bring fanfare or even employment, but to a very large section of the population, this technology seem to be a very dangerous invention that we would rather, they had never got into our amidst.