MTN Uganda has announced that all customers who lost mobile data during Sunday’s nationwide network outage will be compensated, as the telecom company works to restore confidence following one of its biggest service disruptions in recent years.
Speaking on Tuesday, MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer Sylva Mulinge said the company had already refunded more than one million affected customers by Tuesday morning. She urged anyone who has not yet received compensation to contact MTN customer care for assistance.
The outage, which struck on Sunday afternoon, disrupted several key services across the country. Customers were unable to make calls, access the internet, use mobile money, transfer funds or complete transactions between their mobile money wallets and bank accounts.
Mulinge attributed the disruption to a technical failure caused by a power problem at MTN’s Mutundwe data centre in Kampala. She stressed that the incident was purely technical and was not the result of a cyberattack or any external interference.
“We are committed to ensuring that every customer who lost data during the outage is compensated. Customers who have not yet been refunded should contact our customer service team so we can assist them,” Mulinge said.
She added that customers whose data bundles expired while the network was down would also be refunded.
“If you were affected, please send us a direct message with your phone number and details of the data bundle that expired so we can process your refund,” she said.
Mulinge noted that MTN is now investing in stronger infrastructure and additional safeguards to minimise the risk of similar outages in the future and improve the resilience of its network.
The company also addressed concerns raised on social media, where some customers claimed they had lost money during the disruption after failed mobile money transactions.
MTN Mobile Money Managing Director Phrase Lubega dismissed the claims, saying the platform’s systems are designed to prevent money from disappearing during failed transactions.
According to Lubega, any transaction that could not be completed during the outage was automatically halted before any funds left the sender’s account.
“The transactions simply did not go through. No money was deducted and then lost. Our systems are built to ensure customer funds remain secure even when services are interrupted,” he explained.
MTN’s Chief Finance Officer, Andrew Bugembe, acknowledged that the company lost some revenue because of the temporary disruption but said the financial impact on MTN itself was relatively limited since the outage lasted only a short time.
However, he admitted that many customers, mobile money agents and merchants who depend on MTN’s services suffered significant business losses after being unable to complete transactions for several hours.
Engineers revealed that the outage was triggered when one of six generators at the Mutundwe data centre malfunctioned. The failure caused the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system to activate its self-protection mechanism, cutting off power to critical systems and interrupting services.
Despite the incident, Lubega assured customers that their money and personal information remained secure throughout the outage, insisting there was no risk of funds or customer data being compromised.
