Dear Hon, Thanks for the enlightening mail, I just wanted to add that these electronics that do not hit the required standards do not only come with challenges of disposal when they get spoilt quickly, but also bring a long new health complications that we are not aware of and totally unprepared for. It is my suggestion that we look into this seriously.
I also believe that instead of aiming at giving everyone a computer may be nicely planned and managed Community Information Centres (CIC) be put in every sub-county to start with and this make be scaled up to parishes over time. I have done this in some rural places and it has been good. The CIC comes with a sustainability plan and capacity building. Otherwise the blanket distribution of computers to me does not make sense. Anyway the "China Phones" we have to deal with them decisively! Regards Richard -----Original Message----- From: Edward Baliddawa [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 05 October 2010 13:33 To: I-Network Uganda Subject: [i-network] Govt legilsation on used electronics Dear netters, I do remember sometime back on this list amny of you did debate and made varying contributions towards a legislation that was before Parliament on the proposal to ban "used computers". Well, last week during the Parliamentary enactment of the Finance Bill 2010, this issue came back again. The Minister of Finance proposed the amendment of the Finance Bill 2009 to reflect the prohibition of the importation of used computers, refrigirators, freezers and Television Sets. The proposed words of the amendment were as follows: Clause 2 of the Finance Act 2009: "(1a) A person who imports used refrigerators, freezers, computers and television sets in contravention of subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on convition to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eight (8) years of a fine not exceeding seven hundred currency points or both" The Justification for this heavy penalty according to the Min of Finance was to discourage the importation of used refrigerators, freezers, computers and television sets. Now, collegues, as you would imagine a numbers of issues were raised as the debate raged on. At the end of it all, this ammendment was passed and now it only awaits to be ascended to by the President and URA will start cracking the whip I suppose! In as much as I still have skeptism as to the real reason why used computers, frigdes etc.. are being prohibited, I get meore even more concerned as to why this ban is limited to these only. Many of you ae aware of the adverse environmental and health threat used or new phone handsets pose to us today. Let me share with you an experience I had while in China about these Mobile Phones. You in Shenzen they have what they call a "Phone Street". This is a boulevard with shopping malls on either sides which stock only mobile phones. So for any visitor to Shenzen who is interested to see the lates trends of phones, this is the place to go. I was there a few months ago and I got interested in buying an iPhone which was going for only $50. It looked and was packed exactly like the ones you would buy in Brussels or elsewhere in Europe. After paying the money, the Chinese lady who was selling these phones among many others, told me through my interpreter that it was a good phone, but "dont use it yourself or dont give it to your wife, your son or daughter". Later when I asked why this lady had to say that, I was told that these phones may look exactly the same and probably from the same manufacturer but they differ in their level of SAR (Specific Absoption Rate) an industrary standard that measures how safe a particualr phone is. Remebering this incident and as we were debating the above ammendment, I got to be interested in trying to find out if these phones that have flooded our streets do in any way have any SAR standard that they comply with and who enforces it. Well, I know this might be a big debate, but it seems we shall have to embark on that in the ICT Committee in the 9th Parliament, I mean those will eb able to make it to that session and to the ICT Committee. God Bless you all. --- EDward Baliddawa -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
