The government of Uganda a few days ago lifted the ban it had imposed on social media sites like WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and apps stores, leaving the ban on only Facebook.
It is expected that Ugandans will now pay the social media tax (OTT) of 200 Uganda shillings per day to access these social media sites like it was before the shutdown.
However according to James Onen, a.k.a Fatboy, it will be hard to make majority of the social media users get back to paying OTT as they are now used to employing VPN services.
"Government shot itself in the foot when it temporarily banned social media. Most Ugandans that used to pay taxes are now accustomed to using VPN. It has become a normal part of our lives and it will be hard to force us on OTT again," Fatboy said during Friday’s The Fatboy Show.
Fatboy also added that Government has made the work of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) even harder as it will be impossible to hit revenue targets in this area.
"Government has always told URA to collect more taxes but again it went ahead and disabled one source of that income which is OTT. Now I can imagine how they will perform this financial year," he added.
His co-host Olive Najjuma added that most Ugandans would not pay OTT especially now that facebook which majority of the users prefer is still closed.
"So, they expect us to pay OTT to access WhatsApp and twitter then switch back to VPN to access Facebook? That's is unbelievable. Those of us that use Facebook for business don't see how the partial social media lift is beneficial to our various businesses," she said.
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The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy and Oliver Najjuma every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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