A media darling, Romuald Wadagni, Benin’s junior finance minister, says he approves of his government’s decision to tax certain uses of the Internet. Paradoxical?
The downloading of videos and WhatsApp communications are particularly concerned, explains Minister Romuald Wadagni who specifies that this tax does not apply to emails, navigation on Google and simple uses. These remarks were made by Romuald Wadagni, who was also chairman of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) council of ministers, on August 28, during an exchange session.
Justifying his support for a measure to say the least unpopular, the Harvard graduate believes that the use of the WhatsApp is losing money to telecom operators while they (the operators) can afford to do a lot to support young people. they had more resources to invest in the sector. “How do we want Moov, Mtn etc. to invest if during this time everyone uses Whatsapp to call”?
In fact, an anti-technological progress reasoning used by many corporations including taxi unions in France to counter Uber.
In short, continues the Minister, the government’s goal is to increase fees based on usage. And to make matters worse, the minister allows himself a joke seemingly taken at the first level by users: “taxed users are actually those who download music, movies or who make” transfers of images that criticize the government and criticize your friends. ”
This means that Benin’s government decision to tax services provided by networks open to the public in the Republic of Benin is still far from unanimous.
