The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Kenneth Ashigbey, has urged the government not to burden Ghanaians with taxes on mobile money.
The CEO said government should rather encourage Ghanaians to patronize electronic cash system since it will reduce pilfering and other forms of financial malpractice.
Mr. Ashigbey made the call in an interview with Onua FM’s Yen Sempa hosted by Bright Kwasi Asempa while commenting on the increment of tariffs by telecommunications networks with effect from November 1, 2018.
Three telecos namely AirtelTigo, MTN and Vodafone on Wednesday announced that tariffs charged for the use of their services will be reviewed upwards.
A statement issued by the Chamber said the review follows amendments to some laws as captured in the 2018 mid-year budget review.
Mr. Ashigbey told Onua FM that “we are only adding the taxes to the charges and not that we are charging more. It should have started on August 1 so it has even delayed”.
He added: “We hope government will not increase the tax on mobile money but rather encourage people on how to use mobile money so that it will not be like few people using the product and that will minimize pilfering”.
Burden on consumers
Mr Ashigbey indicated that 5 per cent tax will be added.
“It’s only the taxes that will be added and we know there is elasticity of demands so it will affect the consumers”.
He explained that “prices in the sector have gone down over the years and consumers must look at the values they get from the telecoms”.
“It is so difficult but that is what we pay to help the nation and we are conversant of the fact that increments affect demand”.
Percentage increment
Mr. Ashigbey explained that the percentage increment will depend on individual telecom companies and their services.
“Every company has its tariff so we don’t talk about the tariffs together because of their plans and computations.
“But we hope the telecoms will come up with more innovation products to help consumers.”
By Kweku Antwi-Otoo|3news.com|Ghana