Last week, the infamous social media tax dubbed OTT (Over the Top Tax) was removed from the laws governing tax in Uganda.
The law which was introduced via the Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2018 has now been deleted in the new Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2021 and replaced with a new 12% tax on all Internet bundles.
This means people in Uganda can now access the major social media platforms just like they used to in the past while paying an additional 12% on every Internet bundle loaded.
Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, WhatsApp and the rest can now be accessed without need for switching on a VPN as it had become the norm for the past 3 years.
The hugely anticipated day was Thursday last week when OTT was to be scrapped by all telecoms operating in the country and even before that day, major telecoms like Airtel and MTN had Internet outages while attempting to remove OTT from their systems.
All social media platforms were freed as early as Thursday midnight on 1st July except for one, that is Mr Zuckerberg's Facebook platform.
Many Ugandans who had thrown away their VPNs realised that Facebook was actually still blocked despite the removal of OTT and this made many unhappy since it is the most used social media platform in Uganda as of today with an estimated 3,328,000 registered users and 1.5 million active monthly users.
Why is Facebook still blocked in Uganda
Atleast it is not a secret as far as we know because Facebook was blocked in jokes just like that when we were all seeing.
President Museveni just 2 days before the country's general elections in January this year, announced in a national address that Facebook was an enemy of Uganda because it had decided to block pro-government accounts.
This development had been confirmed by Facebook its self just days before Museveni spoke to the country.
Janet Chepkosgei Kemboi who is the spokesperson of Facebook East Africa said the blocked accounts had coordinated malicious activity and many of them were fake and duplicate attempting to spread fake news just before an election in Uganda hence their blockage.
So for now, until Facebook makes an official apology to the government of Uganda and restores the various pro-government accounts it intentionally deleted, President Museveni said it will remain closed until further rather MOTHER Notice.
