President Yoweri Museveni accused the sites of “arrogance” for “siding” with the opposition in the January 2021 presidential poll.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Joshua Tigerson, 21, from Nsambya, a suburb Uganda's capital, Kampala, was one of the many happy social media users who celebrated when the government abolished the over-the-top services tax on July 1, 2021.

Commonly referred to as the social media tax, the government imposed the tax in 2018. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, said it was to curb online “gossip.”

Ugandan social media users were to pay about Sh200 [$0.055] per day to access any of more than 60 social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

Following two years of public outcry, the government repealed the tax, claiming that the Uganda Revenue Authority had failed to meet its over-the-top services tax collections targets.

However, social media users who hoped the government would lift restrictions on Facebook and Twitter still require Virtual Private Networks to use these platforms.

“Facebook and Twitter help me make money online,” Tigerson told IEA.

“I sell designer African clothes, and I easily reach out to my customers through these platforms, but since the government introduced the social media tax, few people have been buying my products. I was happy when the government removed it, but I can't easily access Facebook or Twitter.”

Uganda's strict rules on social media are radically discouraging users. The number of those accessing Facebook per month has reduced from 57.96 percent in August 2020 to just 6.08 percent a year later, according to Statcounter.

Over the same period, Twitter users increased from 13.18 percent to a high of 68. 4 in July 2021, before dropping to 62. 59 a month later.

Ugandans switched to Virtual Private Networks to avoid paying taxes to the government since they operate outside the purview of government controls.

They gained prominence in Uganda among local journalists and political activists in 2016 when the government briefly blocked Twitter and Facebook in the lead-up to the presidential polls.

The use of Virtual Private Networks became widespread after introducing the social media tax in 2018, despite several futile government attempts to block them. 

For the 2018/2019 financial year, the government hoped to collect Sh284 billion [$80.5 million] from the social media tax, but in July 2019, the Uganda Revenue Authority said it had collected only Sh49.5 billion [$12.7 million], a shortfall of 83 percent.

The Excise Duty Amendment Act, 2021, repealed the Over The Top tax and replaced it with a 12 percent excise duty on internet data, which Ugandans pay every time they buy data bundles.

Under the revised scheme, the government hopes to collect up to $170 million annually to “enable the country to achieve industrialization for inclusive growth, employment, and wealth creation,” said Amos Lugoloobi, State Minister for Planning, who presented the Financial Year 2021/22 budget on June 14.

However, regulators still want to shut down the hard-to-crack Virtual Private Networks.

Minister of Information, Communication and Technology and National Guidance, Chris Baryomunsi, said the government is in talks with Facebook's managers over its return.

“We're having with these people and others social media platforms,” he told IEA.

“The social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter will remain closed until we agree on the fundamentals. During our general election campaigns last year, our government began to ask questions”

“We asked why a privately-owned platform like Facebook should become partisan and accuse the [ruling] National Resistance Movement party of everything and even erase accounts of our leaders and members, including our ministry. That's when we decided to cut it off since we weren't dying to have Facebook in Uganda.”

Analysts say the government thinks most Ugandans use social media for propaganda against it and therefore try to limit their access as much as possible.

Disagreements between the Ugandan government and Facebook predate the 2016 general elections.

As early as 2013, the government had pressed Facebook to reveal the true identity of a famous anonymous blogger known as Tom Voltaire Okwalinga, commonly known as TVO to many Ugandans.

The EU must show that Brexit has been“damaging” to the UK, the French prime minister has told Brussels in a letter calling for support for tougher actions over the Channel fishing dispute.

Jean Castex wrote a letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday setting out reasons why the EU should act against Britain over the limited granting of licences for French fishermen to operate in British waters post-Brexit.

He wrote that the EU had to make clear that “leaving the union is more damaging than remaining in it”.

Paris is threatening to increase checks on British boats, stop them landing in French ports, slow customs arrangements in Calais and increase tariffs on energy bills in Jersey from Tuesday unless French fishermen are granted more licences to British waters around Jersey and Guernsey. 

A translation of Mr Castex’s letter says: “The uncooperative attitude of the United Kingdom today risks not only causing great harm to fishermen, mainly French, but also for the [European] union, in that it sets a precedent for the future and challenges our credibility and our ability to assert our rights with regard to international commitments signed by the union.

“It therefore seems necessary for the European Union to show its total determination to obtain full respect for the agreement by the United Kingdom and to assert its rights by using the levers at its disposal in a firm, united and proportionate manner.

“It is essential to clearly show to European public opinion that respect for subscribed engagement is non-negotiable and that there is more damage in leaving the union than in remaining there.”

Mr Castex continued in his letter: “If no satisfactory solution is found in this context, the European Union will have to apply Article 506 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and take corrective measures, in a manner proportionate to the economic and social damage resulting from the breaches.”

He suggested to Ms Von der Leyen that they could impose “customs duties on certain fishery products” as punishment.

The “restoration of trust” lies upon the UK granting French fishermen more fishing licences, his letter also says.

Boris Johnson has said that he would “do whatever is necessary to ensure UK interests” if France carries out its threats over the licences.

He said that the Anglo-French relationship was undergoing “turbulence” and that the French authorities’ decision to impound a British fishing vessel may have broken international law.

Mr Johnson will meet with French president Emmanuel Macron over the weekend at the G20 summit in Rome for their first face-to-face encounter in four months – after both sides have been accusing each other of breaching the Brexit agreement.

The PM, who arrived in Rome last night, responded to the French threats by saying: “We fear that there may be a breach in terms of the Trade Co-operation Agreement implicit in what’s happening. We will standby to take the appropriate action.”

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Macron suggested that the UK’s “credibility” was at stake over the dispute.

He told the newspaper: “When you spend years negotiating a treaty and then a few months later you do the opposite of what was decided on the aspects that suit you the least, it is not a big sign of your credibility.” By Lamiat Sabin, The Independent/Yahoo News