By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
A coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) & Citizens in a letter addressed to President Julius Maada Bio have urged Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to completely reverse the Data tariff increment.
The voice tariff was also said to have been increased by almost 150%.
The CSOs thanked the President for his intervention to reverse the data tariff by 300% after they had written him an open letter on the 29th November, 2022 which he in turn replied to on the 6th December 2022. They pointed at the incarceration of Native Consortium Director Edmond Abu as proof that the consortium touches the lives of the President’s family as everyone.
They informed the President in the letter that, the Data tariff that he reversed for Mobile Consumers late last year, has been increased again 24 hours after Edmond’s incarceration on 10th January this year.
“It is unbearable to the entire public and even the international world as it was aired in the world press, therefore we want your Excellency to please intervene again to stop NATCOM from defying your orders,” the letter reads.
The CSOs also alerted the President that, Voice and text messages tariffs have been increased by almost 100% which they said has made Sierra Leone to be rated as one of the most expensive telecoms tariffs. They stated that NATCOM failed to come back to CSOs and citizens to negotiate the tariff; instead they “ambushed” the citizens and CSOs by giving green light for the increment.
The CSOs and the public are demanding that the tariffs be renegotiated to a minimum increment (10% for instance) as agreed at the Country Lodge meeting. They also urged NATCOM to remove the floor tariff which they said is anti-competitive and exploitative to consumers.
They further said that, the quality of service of the MNOs remain poor, and asked President Bio to consider the matter.
The CSOs asked the President to urge Parliament through the Speaker, the Leader of Government Business and/or the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Communication to summon the Public Relations Unit of the Judiciary to provide evidence about alleged receipt by Edmond of Le 100,000,000 (one hundred million old Leones) from NATCOM & AFRICEL for out of court settlement whilst the matter was in court.
Director of Corporate and Industry Affairs of NATCOM, Abdul Ben-Foday, told Politico that after having a protracted engagement with the service providers overtime, they came to the realization that it was worth making some minimal increases where there were overtime. He said, the last time tariff was reduced on data and voice was in 2017, noting that cost variables have changed overtime.
He pointed out that when the MNOs approached them with their proposals, they did what they could to make a minimal increase of tariff. He said, after the engagement, they made a public private dialogue to everybody and it was agreed that, they should make a little increment which people could afford.
Ben-Foday emphasized that, based on the dialogue they made with people across the country, the increment was minimal. He said the cost of production for MNOs has drastically increased, thus the reason for the increment.
He couldn’t ascertain whether the MNOs were running at a loss which might warrant the increment, but cited international best practices.
Copyright © 2023 Politico Online (26/01/23)
