Internet shutdown for Uganda election Citizens now wait for business to return to normal 21 January 2021 - 17:24 Nita Bhalla and Alice McCool Uganda s President Yoweri Museveni. Picture: REUTERS/ARND WIEGMANN
Nairobi/Kampala When Uganda ordered an internet shutdown on the eve of the presidential election, groundnut seller Susan Tafumba’s trade collapsed.
The 34-year-old sells groundnuts at Kampala’s Nakawa market, but much of her business now comes through a mobile phone app that customers use to order goods to be delivered to them by motorcycle taxis.
“Usually the app gets us more profit than those people who come daily to the market, but we lost customers,” said Tafumba, one of countless small traders whose livelihoods were hit by the shutdown.