“Technology sometimes fails. It is not an excuse,” MTN Uganda chief executive Sylvia Mulinge told journalists in Kampala on Tuesday, two days after an outage left millions of customers unable to make calls, get online or move money.
The disruption began on Sunday, July 5. It hit voice calls, internet connectivity and Mobile Money. Mulinge said the cause was a power failure at one of the company’s data centres, and she rejected speculation of a cyberattack. “The interruption was caused by a power disruption at one of our data centers; it was not a cybersecurity incident,” she said. Engineers worked through the day, and all services were back before the end of Sunday afternoon.
Compensation
On the question of money lost to expired bundles, Mulinge was direct. “Customers whose voice or data bundles expired unused during the service interruption will be compensated in line with our customer care processes. We remain committed to making things right for our customers,” she said, according to The Brink News. Nile Post quoted her as saying such customers “have been compensated.” The reports differ on whether the payments had already gone out, and neither describes how they are made.
“We are sorry to all our customers and everyone who was impacted,” Mulinge said. “We know many people were greatly inconvenienced, and we sincerely apologise for the interruption.”
General Manager Joseph Bogere also apologised, addressing “every customer, agent, merchant, and partner affected by the service interruption.”
Mobile Money
Mulinge said customer information and Mobile Money balances were never compromised. MTN Mobile Money managing director Phrase Lubega backed that up. “The integrity of the entire system remained intact. At no point were customer balances or transactions compromised,” he said.
Lubega acknowledged the disruption to routine payments, among them school fees, fuel, utility bills, merchant payments and money transfers. He said MTN had met all regulatory reporting requirements and would keep engaging the Bank of Uganda. Mulinge said the company kept the Uganda Communications Commission, the Bank of Uganda and other stakeholders updated during the recovery. Lubega urged customers, agents and merchants to ignore misinformation on social media.
The platform serves more than 14.7 million active customers through a nationwide network of agents and merchants, according to MTN.
Investment
Mulinge said MTN spent more than Shs584 billion on network expansion and upgrades during 2025 and now serves more than 24 million customers in Uganda. The company has spent 27 years building communications infrastructure in the country. “Our responsibility is to continue investing and strengthening our systems so that such incidents do not happen again,” she said.
Sources
- MTN Uganda Fully Restores Services After Power Outage; Promises Compensation for Expired Bundles
- MTN Apologises for Nationwide Outage, Compensates Customers for Expired Bundles
