By Frank Kamuntu
The Minister of ICT Chris Baryomunsi has appointed Nyombi Thembo, 59, as the new Executive Director of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
Baryomunsi wrote to UCC on Thursday, saying he had appointed Thembo to lead UCC for the next five years.
He replaces Eng Irene Kaggwa Sewankambo who has served in the interim capacity for the last four years since the retirement of Godfrey Mutabazi in 2020.
The KampalaReport understands that Thembo defeated three candidates, who are Fred Otunnu, the UCC Corporate Affairs Director, Eng Irene Kaggwa, and Julianne Mweheire, the UCC Director of Industrial Affairs and Content Development.
More than 70 people had applied for the UCC top job when it was advertised in September 2023,
Thembo has since 2017 been working as the director of the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF), a Universal Service Fund (USF), to communications in Uganda.
It was established in 2003 and it is administered at arms’ length by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
Nyombi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Makerere University and a Master of Science in Development Economics from Uganda Martyrs University (UMU). He also holds a diploma in project planning and management (Bradford University, UK) and a post-graduate diploma in financial management (UMU).
Nyombi was born on July 31, 1964 in Kassanda, Singo County, in present-day Mubende District. Married with children, he is a member of the ruling National Resistance Movement party.
Among others, Nyombi worked as an analyst, planning officer and senior planning officer for the then Uganda Railways Corporation during the 1990s and as a Project Manager for Transport Rehabilitation Project (Railway Component), at Kampala City Council (1995-2001), when he joined politics.
Nyombi was elected to the Ugandan Parliament in 2001, representing his home constituency of Kassanda County South in Mubende District for over a decade (2001-2015).
He has also held a number of posts in the Ugandan Cabinet: State Minister for primary education in the Ministry of Education and Sports (2001-2009), State Minister for Luweero Triangle in the Office of the Prime Minister (2009-2011) and then as State Minister for Information and Communications Technology (2011-15).
