Earlier this week, a notice, which Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) had described as fake news, circulated on social media with guidelines on how to manually pay tax for Over-The-Top (OTT) services, including all popular social media platforms.

The notice stated that "access to over the Top (OTT) services will be blocked effective July 1st" and "access will only be granted upon payment of the tax by the customer".

Telecommunication giants MTN, Africell and Airtel on Friday issued a joint statement confirming that certainly the Over-The-Top (OTT) service tax will be implemented effective July 1st.

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Social media users will access the services upon payment of UGX200 daily, UGX1,400 weekly or UGX6,000 monthly. Access will be granted for a calendar day, meaning the tax will be void after 11.59PM.

On 31st May, Uganda's Parliament passed the Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, 2018, which seeks to impose a daily UGX200 tax on the usage of social media, 1% tax on the total value of mobile money transactions, among others.

The decision was reached after President Kaguta Museveni castigated URA and Ministry of Finance for failing to identify other tax sources -- suggesting an introduction of a small fee on social media usage.

He also argued that the proposed tax on social media would be a "resource to cope with the consequences of 'lugambo' (rumormongering).