Protesters tear-gassed

KAMPALA: Police in Uganda fired tear gas yesterday to disperse a small crowd of protesters demonstrating against new taxes including a levy on access to social media platforms, a police spokesperson said.

Starting with the 2018/19 (JulyJune) financial year, the government introduced several new taxes and hiked existing ones to try to increase government revenue and finance public infrastructure.

A crowd of about 200 people wearing red T-shirts and shouting “Power! Power!” as they marched through down-town Kampala was dispersed after police tried to arrest an independent lawmaker critical of President Yoweri Museveni, a witness said.

Two of the new taxes, one on access to social media and a second on transactions on Mobile Money, have both stoked widespread outrage from telecommunication firms’ customers.

Mobile Money is a cellphone-borne service popular in Uganda and across East Africa and is used to transmit cash between individuals and effect payments for goods and services.

Relations between governments and social media companies are widely watched in Africa, where rapidly growing mobile internet connectivity is hailed by human rights groups as an essential tool of political and economic development.

The Ugandan government blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp during the last general election in 2016, a move used by other entrenched rulers in Africa in response to grass-roots movements against them.