African ICT bosses call for tax reduction on digital gadgets

African telecom and ICT bosses have urged governments across the continent to lower the cost of digital gadgets as one way of reducing the digital divide and improving efficiency across different sectors of the economy.

They made the appeal during the LEAP (Leadership, Employability, Advancement and Possibility) summit on June 28 (Friday) in Shanghai, China.

The summit was part of the Mobile World Congress summit that started on June 24 (Tuesday) and ended on June 28 (Friday) in Shanghai, China.

John Mo, the secretary general of the African Telecommunications Union, the telecom arm of the African Union, rallied tech firms to work with governments in setting up gadget manufacturing plants on the continent.

Ministry of ICT and national guidance undersecretary Sophia Nantongo attending the (Leadership, Employerbaility, Advancement and Possibility (LEAP)Summit in Shanghai, China on Friday.

“In terms of affordability, we need to see more and more of these enterprises set shop in their manufacturing within the continent, governments working with them for purposes of reducing taxation on both systems, terminals and services so that we can easily harness the services that we need. The biggest contributor to access gaps in our countries is the issue of digital literacy. Most of our population, especially those that are disadvantaged in rural areas do not feel sufficiently empowered to use the gadgets that you and me play with,” he said.

Mo also called for the empowerment of young people to enable them to productively use digital tools for prosperity.

“The number of young people that are craving for opportunities for digital self-actualisation in Africa is amazing yet we have not afforded them the opportunity that they so much need to realize their full potential. The median age of the youth in Africa is 19 years. So the potential in that population is enormous. We can do a lot more for our people if we can cooperate rather than compete,” he added.

Mo’s appeal was re-echoed by Uganda’s ICT and national guidance undersecretary Sophia Nantongo who called for a reduction of taxes on digital gadgets to make them affordable for young people.

“With internet prices, as a government, we are working on a legislation to see that we reduce taxation on broadband. We need as Africa to think about that if we are to go digital. If the price is high, we will not be able to achieve our digital agenda,” she said.

Over 90% of the digital devices used in Uganda are imported with a lot of taxes such as 18% value-added tax, excise duty and withholding tax which make affordability and access difficult. Apart from physical gadgets, online services such as mobile money are heavily taxed like the 0.5% tax on all withdrawals.

Nantongo also urged tech firms to set up gadget manufacturing plants in countries like Uganda.

“We call upon Huawei to come and set up gadget manufacturing plants in Uganda because it will increase accessibility,” she said.

Zimbabwe’s ICT minister Tatenda Mavetera urged young people to embrace ICT for future opportunities.

Kenya’s principal education secretary Dr Beatrice Muganda urged global tech companies to turn universities in Africa into their training hubs.

“We thank Huawei for the partnership, but we are saying the population is big. You cannot do this on your own. We know that you are partnering with some of our universities. It has been 25 years and we want to count more output and this is only going to happen if you empower more of our universities to be your training hubs. And how will this happen?  This will happen if you involve our experts, lecturers and researchers in your initiatives beyond the internships you give our students,” she said.

The president of Huawei in Africa, Gao Xiang, said his company had rolled out various digital talent development programmes tailored to local development needs over the last 26 years. 

In 2022, the company launched the LEAP (Leadership, Employability, Advancement and Possibility) digital skills development programme that has been running across several institutions of higher learning in sub-Saharan Africa.

“I would like to announce that as of today, we have trained over 120,000 digital talents in the region over the past 22 months,” he said.