Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has defended the country’s new social media tax, saying Ugandans were using such platforms for “lying”, and squandering the nation’s hard currency on fees to foreign-owned telecoms firm which includes Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, YouTube, Skype, Yahoo Messenger and many others. The tax has proven extremely unpopular with Ugandan mobile phone users, who say it is unfair and stifles free speech.
In a statement on Twitter (ironic, wouldn't you say?), Museveni described social media as a “*luxury by those who are enjoying themselves or those who are malicious...all the moral reasons are in favour of that tax*.” Ugandan social media users, he said, were “endlessly donating money to foreign telephone companies through chatting or even lying.”
“The tax is an absolute insult to Ugandans...we already buy data which the government taxes, why should we again have to pay this money to the government to access these platforms? And in any case these are now essential communications channels that people use to reach loved ones, communicate with friends, socialites and mobilize civically...the tax reflects the highest form of greed,” said Dickens Kamugisha, a Kampala-based charity worker.
This week Amnesty International called on the government to scrap the tax, which it called an attempt to smother dissent disguised as a measure to raise revenue. The tax, collected by mobile phone internet service providers since July 1, is equivalent to about 20 per cent of what typical Ugandan users pay for their mobile phone data plans. Uganda’s two biggest telecom firms are owned by South Africa’s MTN Group and India’s Bharti Airtel, while other small players are also mostly foreign-owned.
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