Parliament is set to spend UGX 32, 976,000 to pay the Over the Top-OTT Tax and UGX 164,880,000 annually for data bundles for each legislator.
In a document seen by journalists, the institution will pay the monthly Shillings 6000 for OTT alias social media tax and Shillings 30,000 for 5GB data bundles for each of the 458 legislators. This means the institution will spend UGX 2,748,000 on OTT and UGX 13,740,000 on data bundles monthly. This amounts to 197.8M Shillings.
According to official bid documents displayed on May 2nd, 2019, Airtel Uganda and Africell Uganda lost the bid to MTN Uganda Limited who emerged the best bidder.
The other telecoms were eliminated in the preliminary stages of the restricted domestic bidding process.
According to Robina Nabanja, the Kakumiro Woman MP and member of the Parliamentary Commission it is right for the house to pay for the legislator's OTT and provide them data since they are doing people’s work on Ipads provided through tax payer’s money.
"This is purely work, we are working for Ugandans. That is why MPs can put data and pay OTT for their personal phones and personal work. But for Parliament business and access to social media for Parliament business, MPs are not supposed to inject in their money," she said.
