Cost of inbound international calls set to skyrocket
Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications, Ghana, and Chairman of the ITU Council 2009 (source: ITU)
A new telecoms tax levied on inbound international calls, is said to increase tarrifs by between 20% and 100%, making doing business with Africa extremely difficult in countries like Gabon and Ghana, writes a UK publication.
The tax, reportedly in contravention of the Melbourne Convention that has been ratified by majority of African countries, was introduced last year in Cote d’Ivoire on all calls to the country from overseas, including direct, transit and roaming calls, increasing calling charges by as much as 20% or CFA20 (0.03 euro cents).
In Gabon, the telecoms and ICT ministry introduced a similar tax, translating to an increase in call prices into Gabon by 137 francs CFA (US$0.29) a minute for termination to mobile networks and 137 francs CFA (US$0.29) a minute for termination to fixed networks, a whooping 52,5% increase.
The official documents state that operators will pay 72 CFA (US$0.15) per minute to the regulator Artel, which has overall responsibility for collecting the tax and will share revenues between itself and the technical operator of the scheme.
This January in Ghana, Minister of Communications Haruna Iddrisu called for the establishment of a centre for verification of incoming calls to generate “an additional US$50 million per annum (in taxes) from inbound international calls”, according to Ghana Press Agency. The reported increase is estimated to more than double the cost of international calls, from US8-9 cents to US19 cents a minute.
Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice President of the GSM Association called the initiative “counter productive”.
“We are against such taxes as they harm all stakeholders and we advocate that they be removed immediately”, he said.
One of Senegal’s mobile operators, Tigo, is against the introduction of a tax on incoming international calls. The topic is being debated widely in the West African nation.
According to the ITU Melbourne Convention of 1988, adding taxes on incoming international calls is prohibited.
