Lehulu Unified Billing System (UBS)

The Unified Billing System (UBS) project, as part of E-Gov initiatives, is one of the major interventions by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), Ethiopia, to unify the bill payment of various utilities for the convenience and benefit of citizens. It focuses on enhancing the quality of service available to the citizen through re-defining the way citizens pay their utility bills.

The key utilities identified for this pilot project are: Addis Ababa Water & Sewage Authority (AAWSA), Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCO) and Ethio-Telecom (ET). The objective of the initiative is to establish a suggestive PPP model for realizing an ICT enabled Integrated Utility Billing for the three public institutions with a highly competent, and efficient private partner. For more pictures of the UBS inaugurations, please use the following link.UBS Project implemented using PPP in Ethiopia

Public Private Partnership in E-Government Initiatives

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as a model is an efficient formula to implement public services by forming collaboration between private partners and the government. PPPs are complex legal arrangements designed to share the control, risks and rewards of a set of specific investments among private partners and a government sector. In most PPP models, the assets are legally owned and used by the private partner to produce a specified category of services for specific period, and then the government gains operational control and legal ownership of the investment, often without payment. Applying the PPP in the E-Government projects helps to achieve the objectives of e-government by effectively planning and implementing the project. For full paper reading, please use the following link.Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in the E-Government Initiatives for Developing Nations: the case of Ethiopia