Earlier this month, UCC announced a nationwide crackdown on unlicensed public WiFi hotspots. These are the small operators who buy bulk data and resell it to neighbours for as little as UGX 1,000 a day. What made me pay closer attention wasn’t the enforcement itself, but the timing: three weeks earlier, UCC’s own Director of Economic Regulation had said the Commission would not stop this practice, because it reflects real demand for affordable, flexible internet access.
That contradiction felt familiar. In February, KCCA evicted street vendors from Kampala’s CBD using almost the same justification: order, consumer protection, formalisation. Months later, some relocated vendors are still struggling in the new markets, and some have already drifted back to the streets, because the formal alternative didn’t actually replace what the informal one gave them.
I wrote to probe what happens to the people actually being served when formalisation arrives without a transition plan, or an alternative path that UCC could take instead of a blanket ban?
Read the full piece here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ucc-wifi-hotspot-ban-kcca-vendor-eviction-one-playbook-wamahe-sasyf/