Is the economy at stake or just a few haunts here and there....?

In July when the notorious social media and Mobile money were introduced, the public out cry was high not because the tax was too high but because it seemed unfair and segregative in nature affecting the lower earning class "omuntu wa wansi was hit hard".

A 1% charge on mobile money transactions has hit the once booming mobile money business as the community has resorted back to the rudimentary means of keeping money lowering the transactions made over the platform.

A platform that had come in to save the public especially on dealing with the long queues in banks especially when it came to utility bill payments.

Introduced to handle hooliganism and idleness, the OTT tax might have instead missed it objective as this saw the entire population resort to the data consuming VPN  networks to overcome the network restrictions.

Has the objective been attained, that's what remains unanswered?
Last week when the Parliament voted to retain the OTT tax and have the mobile money tax scrapped to 0.5%, MTN applauded the move by Parliament to reduce the charge citing that the mobile money dealers would return to business as he hoped for more transactions.

Various issues were also raised by the parliamentarians including but not limited to the rich class who would be paying the OTT tax dodging it as they have access to the tax free WiFi networks at work places .

Another hard hitting point but highly ignored point is the time value for money effect.
Telecommunications companies have come to the spotlight for failure to incorporate the effect into the deposits and savings by the public on their mobile money accounts i.e that is the companies should provide interest on the money deposited or saved with mobile money because it is assumed that the companies use those savings to generate profits but don't share it with the public.

However the companies apply this effect when they offer loans and berako credit services to the subscribers.
In a developing economy like Uganda, all these issues have to be looked into if the pace of development has to be geared up.

#twinphile