VAT: The People's New Diet

Luis Munguambe Junior"

The Mozambican people can no longer live without counting every metical. Every note and every cent is accounted for, and often sacrificed in the name of survival. But now, as if that weren't enough, the State has decided to innovate: it has launched the new "national diet." The VAT diet on mobile wallets. M-Pesa, e-Mola, Mkesh… the same instruments that for years helped citizens survive and support their families, are now becoming the new fiscal enemy. And it's a democratic diet: it punishes everyone, without distinction. The informal vendor who moves 200 or 300 meticais a day, the mother who sends fifty meticais to her son to buy bread, the motorcycle taxi driver who pays for fuel to work, the young entrepreneur trying to build a small business, and even the grandmother in the countryside, who receives help from her family… everyone was invited to participate in this “financial marathon,” without registration or prior notice. People were already dieting from everything: food, water, electricity, opportunities. Now, they're required to go on a fiscal diet too. The irony of ironies: while the average citizen loses weight, the large corruption schemes remain intact, fat and smiling, protected by silence and conveniences that no one dares to challenge. Mobile wallets are neighborhood banks, a source of hope in local currency. Applying VAT to these transactions is penalizing those who already carry too much weight. It's suffocating the young person trying to start a business; the motorcycle taxi driver; the small shopkeeper. And all this while the big culprits remain unpunished, laughing at the "easy profit" of the average citizen. And while the people struggle to survive, the official speeches seem straight out of a fiction book: “We want financial inclusion. We want everyone to have access to the banking system. We want economic growth for all.” Economic growth… for all? It seems that “all” doesn’t include those who wake up at five in the morning, wait for an overcrowded minibus, and pay expensive fuel to transport passengers or goods. And don't think that these small fees are symbolic. No. Every metical withdrawn from the mobile wallet is a drop of the worker's sweat. But you have to laugh at the absurdity, because crying won't solve anything. Every transaction you manage to make without being crushed by taxes is a small victory. And humor is what saves the day. For example, imagine the fruit vendor: he makes 300 meticais a day, buys oranges, bananas, okra, and in the end, the State still comes to charge the "survival tax." He thinks: "If I'm going to diet, I'd rather it be on food and not on meticais!" The motorcycle taxi driver sighs, pays for fuel, picks up passengers, and still pays VAT: "Well, at least laughter isn't taxable." The young entrepreneur observes his empty wallet and concludes that opening a business in Mozambique is like training for a marathon… but with shoes with holes. The VAT on mobile wallets is not just unfair; it's cruel. Citizens learn that surviving has become taxable. They learn that, in this country, even breathing can be expensive, if we consider the effort, time, and sweat. They learn that living requires constant juggling, and that laughing at the absurd is the only safe form of protest. Mobile wallets are more than just money; they are hope, they are connection. And by trying to tax them, the State is touching on what is most sacred to millions of Mozambicans: the ability to help their families and develop the country, to survive with dignity, to dream of a less arduous future. To survive is a miracle enough. The new state diet is, in fact, cruel, but it's also a lesson: it teaches citizens that the only way to survive is to keep a sense of humor, even when everything conspires against them. VAT: The People's New Diet. An irony that is not at all funny for those who are already barely surviving, but which reveals, in a painful and amusing way, the injustice of a system that continues to choose the easiest path: charging those who have nothing.

2025/12/3