After the news of Parliament approval of social media tax went viral, Africans have turned Uganda into a laughing stock! The tax which will be effective from July will have social media users part with Shs200 per day to access Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
While the legislators were pleased to have added another source of revenue to public coffers, the world was laughing off their efforts!
The tax comes at a time when several youths are creating a source of livelihood off the internet thanks to social media. With high unemployment rate, the internet has largely been one of the best hopes for African job market.
Adames Ebra from Ghana stated;” Facebook is an American company dictators in Africa wanna charge their people for using it.How low Africa can go?”
Nicholas Betungye Rwamutugunda, a Uganda stated; ”In my view its a big shame to the pearl of Africa when other countries are struggling to penetrate dip into ICT usage as a driving factor to the economy, then for them they are taxing social media users”.
Koke Azaino from South Africa laughed off; “You see why African countries will remain poor, Uganda is one of the poorest countries in the world”.
“African governments are worse than our colonisers. The difference between the two is that colonisers didn’t pretend to like and care about the people”, Danaiishe Otule from Ghana stated.