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By Moses K. Gahigi
GSMA, the body that oversees the telecommunications industry worldwide, announced that it will meet with the Ugandan government in October to discuss taxes on the Mobile money recently imposed.
Last month, the parliament passed a law that imposed a 1% tax on mobile money transactions, including filing, sending, receiving and withdrawing, as well as the payment of a fee. an over-the-top tax Ush200 ($ 0.05) on social media services.
sparked mass protests, with activists marching through the streets and others taking social media to express their shock and frustrations.
Many said the tax would only succeed in taking over the economy to cash in transactions and affect jobs. Kenechi Okeleke, Chief Analyst at GSMA Intelligence.
After consumer pressure, Kampala dropped three of the four samples that he asked the government for us to clearly understand their point of view. Uganda has more than 22 million mobile money accounts, which means that more than 150,000 mobile money agent jobs are at stake as a result of the proposal of tax. The civil society budget advocacy group says the tax does not respect one of the principles of taxation – fairness – and will frustrate Ugandans.
million. Okeleke said that the GSMA's engagement with stakeholders It is expected that the mobile industry in Uganda will generate an understanding of the sector, which will help highlight the points of blockage and to identify other opportunities for different actors.
"The forum should create a supportive environment supports the mobile money industry to allow more adoption," he said.
East Africa is one of the largest markets for mobile money, accounting for 56.4% of the total number of users in sub – Saharan Africa.
Mobile money is increasing rapidly throughout the region and, in 2017, the total value and number of transactions increased by 14.4% and 17.9% to reach 19.9 billion and 1 billion respectively. , $ 2 billion
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