Patrick Masambu, a Uganda citizen and former chairman of the Council of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) (www.CTO.int/) has been elected director-general of the US-based International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (ITSO) (www.ITSO.int/).

Mr Masambu was the only Commonwealth candidate for the position. A former communications regulator for Uganda, he brings to the role over 30 years of experience, including over six years as ITSO’s current deputy director-general and director of technical affairs. He is the first sub-Saharan African to be elected to the position.

During his time as chairman of the CTO Council on behalf of Uganda, Mr Masambu presided over important transformations to turn the CTO into a more member-centric organisation.

“The election was exciting with three strong candidates. I am delighted to see Patrick elected. He brings tremendous experience to ITSO and I look forward to working with him,” said Shola Taylor shortly after Mr Masambu’s election.

In his acceptance remarks, Mr Masambu thanked all ITSO members for their support and looked forward to partnerships with international and regional organisations, including CTO, in areas such as capacity building to achieve the objectives of ITSO.

The Honourable Frank Tumwebaze, Uganda’s Minister of Information Technology & Communications equally thanked all the member states and also Mr Taylor SG for the excellent support given to Uganda to improve the ICT sector in Uganda.

ITSO’s mission is to:

• Ensure the performance of Core Principles for the provision of international public telecommunications services, with high reliability and quality
• Promote international public telecommunications services to meet the needs of the information and communication society
• Protect the ITSO Parties' Common Heritage

For the CTO, it is important that Commonwealth values and shared interests are represented at the highest level in international forums, in order to strengthen the position of the Commonwealth.