Ugandan government says it has found a solution on how to block usage of VPN

Former Minister for ICT George William Nyombi Thembo, now Director for the Rural Development Fund (RCDF) at Uganda Communications Commission, has said government finally found a lasting solution on how to block the usage of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) which people have been using to beat restrictions and monitoring.

Clever Ugandans who rebelled against paying a taxi known as social media tax to access social media platforms have been using VPN to help them evade the tax. 

The government has been finding it hard to collect social media tax and has been searching and testing many solutions. 

Nyombi said they have been successful at it and are looking forward to implementing the solution.

He stated that VPN will no longer be a problem to government's implementation of social media tax which came into effect in July 2018.

The government is excited about the move as Nyombi explains that the move to block VPNs is not intended to cripple businesses but rather it’s for security reasons.

“Internet blockage is not akin to Uganda. Many countries have done it before and will do it. It was not the first neither will it be the last time. We will continue doing it if we have compelling reasons and this time we have a solution for VPNs. You will not be able to use them."

Nyombi also warned Ugandans that have continuously joked around on internet not knowing how dangerous it is to the nation especially security.

He added that the government is investing a lot so as to be in a position to harmlessly control internet usage in the country.