This tax is oppressive! - Bobi Wine trashes social media tax

Musician turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine has come out criticise the new thread of taxes saying that they are oppressive.

Speaking at the youth activists conference at Serena hotel, where a group of young activists intend to petition the Speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga, The Kyadondo East legislator said that power belongs to the people and he at times feels ashamed to belong to this parliament.

" We all know that it is numbers that count. I have said it before and am saying it again that many times I get ashamed of the fact that I belong this parliament. We were very few when the issue was being debated but when voting came, people we normally call the voting machines came in with many of them actually asserting that they didn't know what we were voting for. So we are here because it failed to work out in parliament. You sent us to represent you but we were not enough. People are the bosses and that is why when it fails in Parliament, we come back to them." - He said in his address to journalists.

" We don't want to take the blame as us but we want to take responsibility as a country. Young people are the majority and we are charged with a responsibility to determine what kind of life they are going to live in. This tax is oppressive and it is making life impossible to the already suffering people"

With the new taxes on social media and mobile money continuing to cause uproar among the general public, the proprietors of this petition argue that taxes on social media are limiting the freedom of expression which is supposed to be free.

According to Raymond Mujuni, who is one of the activists and movers of this petition, young people were excluded from the law making process and the taxes on social media infringe on their rights.

"We felt fundamentally as young people that we were being excluded from the law making process. On the record, we are trying to meet the parliamentary committee   to impress upon them the idea that freedom of expression is fundamental cannot be limited by a tax and if the limitation is to arise, it must be justifiable beyond measure. This tax was passed with out that consideration we have gone to court to challenge it." - Raymond Mujuni told NBS during a live TV interview.

He added that as they went to court, several other young people joined the cause and decided to call them for a dialogue.

"First of all we are saying that this tax is discriminatory. This tax is offensive and it infringes on lives of the people as young people. Social media is the basic element of engagement for many young people,"he added.

The activists have also promised to do some thing else if court denies them justice by Friday 6th, July but have however remained tight lipped on what they are planning to do.