Tanzania government bows under pressure to reduce mobile money tax by 30%
The Tanzania government has disembarked on its initial plans to impose high taxes on mobile money transactions.
The tax, which was originally set to be at 10 to 10,000 Tanzanian shillings ($0.4 to $4.31) per transaction, has now been discussed to be cut by 30% to 7 to 7,000 shillings, depending on the amount of money transferred following the president’s intervention.
Faced by protests in July and August, the president of the republic, Samia Suluhu Hassan as reported by express newsroom.com on Monday, November 22, 2021, told the Minister of Finance and Planning, Mwigulu Nchemba, and the Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, Faustine Ndugulile, to rethink the costs.
Now Nchemba’s ministry has said: “The government believes that the decision will bring relief to the people and allow them to raise funds to implement various development projects.”
It will be recalled that last month the Tanzania government set a target of raising $2.1 billion from mobile money tax in the next five years.
On his part Job Ndugai, the president of the National Assembly, had explained that the money would be used to finance social services. “The new levy that was approved during the previous parliamentary budget session is crucial to generate income for rural development and improvement of infrastructure in the education sector,” said Ndugai.
However, the country will be left with just $1.4 billion to spend on the improvements. The government of Tanzania has an annual budget of $15.82 billion – so the mobile money tax is a significant contributor to the country’s resources.
Source: Richard Mensah Adonu | Join our Telegram Group
