KABUL(SW): Abdul Razaq Wahidi, Minister of Communication and Information Technology has said that the 10 percent tax taken from the subscribers is ‘imposed’ on the Ministry.
Speaking at the MoCIT’s Annual Coordination Session, on Tuesday in Kabul, he said that the Ministry was drawn into imposing the tax on the customers.
He said that the Ministry of Finance did not coordinate it with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology in advance before going ahead with the move.
He said that following the President’s decree they had to establish a system to deduct 10 percent tax from the customers of the telecommunication companies.
The ministry also informed that it has inactivated 12 million sim cards out of 25 million sim cards, which have been distributed across the country.
The minister said that MoCIT was considering a program for registering the sim cards electronically, which would begin next month.
Najib Azizi, Chairman of Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority, said that electronic registering of the sim cards was in their priority.
He said that they tax collection can only stop if the President issues a decree cancelling it.
Earlier, members of parliament also showed reaction to the President’s decree on taxes on the customers calling it against the law.
The Ministry of Finance on the other end claimed the government collected more than afn 160 million over a period of two weeks when the tax collection started on 23rd September, a major step forward for self-reliance.
ENDS
