A group of students from Makerere University have met and petitioned the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga over the new taxes on social media and mobile money taxes which they say are oppressive and so many students won’t be able to afford them in the long run yet they use social media for educational purposes. The students led by Mr. Samuel Obedgiu stated this in a meeting with Ms Kadaga in the Speaker’s board room at Parliamentary building. She has promised the delegation that she would speak to the house about the matter on Wednesday so that they would carry out a review.
It should be noted that the government introduced the Shs 200 daily tax on social media sites and the 1% tax on Mobile Money transactions effective July 1st 2018. However, these were immediately rejected by majority of the population when they came into play. This forced Government to walk back the levies, removing the tax on mobile money deposits and halving the tax on the rest of the transactions to 0.5%. The social media tax, which is even more unpopular however, still sticks.
President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday defended the controversial social media tax, saying social media is a waste of money on foreign firms. Social media users, he said, were “endlessly donating money to foreign telephone companies through chatting or even lying.”
