Already at its launch a year ago, Uganda’s Social Media-tax caused a lot of trouble critics feared censorship and went on the road. Now, even some advocates of the time are dissatisfied.
After a taxi driver, immorality and Kawenja parked his car on the roadside, he pulls the Smartphone out of the center console. Its customers can order their rides usually via WhatsApp. If no requests come in, he offers his services via the ride service provider Uber.
Because of his work Kawenja must be online all the time. But since a year this is no longer so simple. In July 2018, Uganda’s government has introduced a tax on Social-Media sites like WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter, but also on Taxi services or Dating platforms. Officially it’s called OTT-Tax, in the vernacular, but are called “Social media” or “WhatsApp-tax”.
With VPN against the tax
The 26-Year-old is boycotting them. “I think it’s just not fair,” he says. The cost of the Internet usage in Uganda is already very high. The majority of Ugandans live of just one US Dollar per day, in local currency the equivalent of around 4000 shillings. “If you buy then a day for 1000 shilling a data package of 50 MB and then you have to pay 200 shillings tax on it – then this is for many a challenge,” says Kawenja. In comparison: for 200 shillings you can buy in Uganda, a Kilo of maize flour.
Via mobile money transfer, the tax must be paid to
He could afford to pay the tax, and also pay regular income tax –the Social Media-tax principle, but not. “I rather use VPN, so I can bypass the local restrictions on the use of Social media,” he says. With the application you can enter as the location is not Uganda, but, for example, Canada. The use of suds, although the phone battery quickly and consume little more data, but it was worth it to him, he says.
For young Ugandans, the Kawenja of the Opposition, the Boycott of the OTT-control a silent Rebellion against the government. Because, as is often the Initiative of President Yoweri Museveni came to himself. In a speech he had complained at the beginning of 2018, the youth would have to spend a lot of time with WhatsApp and senseless Chatting, and wild rumors spread.
Shortly afterwards, Museveni’s loyal Deputy, presented a bill for the tax in Parliament. In the Snap, the law was adopted in may 2018 and entered into force at the beginning of July – just in time for the start of the new financial year. The Ugandans no WhatsApp able to send or to receive messages. Instead, a Menu which you have to transfer via a mobile money transfer first, the tax due will now be on the Display.
President Museveni had the idea for the new tax
On the same day, opposition politicians – including the well – known music star and opposition politician, Robert Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine called-for protests. The police moved in with tear gas and rubber bullets. The Demonstration was violently dispersed.
An attack on the freedom of expression?
For human rights lawyer Eron Kiiza, the tax is just another Instrument of speech and freedom of expression in Uganda to further restrict. “There is no legal basis, which makes the Spread of rumors is illegal, either in Uganda or anywhere else in the world,” says Kiiza.
He now represents a class-action lawsuit, the journalists and human rights submitted by organisations before the constitutional court and hopes for a speedy hearing. Because Uganda have already made several times the experience that the government block the Internet in election campaigns or in protests.
Uganda’s government rejects a political context. “The reason why we have introduced the tax, was, that more and more people communicate rather than over the Internet to make calls instead, and not only the telecommunications providers, but also we, as the tax authority, less income,” says Vincent Semura, speaker of Uganda’s tax authority, URA.
A year ago, critics of the tax went on the road
However, a year after the introduction he, too, must admit: The government has miscalculated. The tax has only brought in 17 percent of the planned revenue. The reason: “a Lot of people, the tax deal by using VPN”, so Semura.
In this, Uganda’s government needed the revenue to the infrastructure of the Internet, especially in rural areas continue to expand. At the same time, Uganda’s telecommunications authority, UCC reports, however, that the number of Internet users has decreased since the introduction of the tax to about 30 percent. Around three million people.
A year after the introduction of the members of Parliament to complain about the costs incurred by the tax. They include wage earners to the top. The government had initially announced to pay the taxes of the deputies from the state budget. But then Parliament speaker Rebecca Kadaga spoke a word of Power: The majority of the members of Parliament would have for the tax-law-voted – then you must bear the costs themselves.