Six million Rwandans will be connected to mobile phones by 2012, a new ambitious government program says.

The plan was announced by the Minister in Charge of Science and Technology in the Office of The President Romain Murenzi while briefing Senators on the current state of the country’s ICT progress.

"Rwanda is moving at a rapid rate in terms of technological development and enhanced reach out to her people, it is in this context that we plan to have all Rwandan adults connected on phone by 2012,” said Murenzi.

Speaking to The New Times after the parliamentary session, Colonel Diogene Mudenge, the Director General of Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) said that, "the telecom companies have set the plan to achieve this, currently, MTN Rwanda has about 1.3million subscribers, Rwandatel has about 0.4 million subscribers.

The new operator, Tigo is coming up as well and all these companies have set mega plans to attract as many subscribers as possible,”

Recently, government also announced plans to scrap the Value Added Tax on cheap mobile handsets.

Meanwhile Senators requested that the country comes up with the ICT law that would govern and protect the use of ICT facilities in the country.

In response, Murenzi told the house that the ICT bill is currently being drafted and will be tabled before parliament soon.

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