Ghana’s largest telecoms network MTN has said telecoms companies operating in the country are struggling with numerous taxes, which have raised the cost of doing business and forced telecoms to increase prices for the first time in their history.
MTN Ghana chief executive officer (CEO) Serame Taukobong told journalists the company felt telecoms had “been on a rather rough receiving side of many taxes” recently.
“You will have noticed this year that for the first time in the history of the telecom sector, we had to make a price increase because we cannot continue to absorb the taxes. Overall, the cost of doing business led us to take that decision,” he said.
He said the taxes are increasing the costs incurred by subscribers when they make phone calls or access the internet, and revealed one-third of what the subscribers spend on calls or internet goes to the government as taxes.
At the outset of the tax regime, he said the networks were absorbing the high taxes but as they increased it became unavoidable for the networks to increase their prices to reflect market conditions and challenges.
He said Ghana’s telecoms industry had not increased prices for over ten years, whilst other sectors have increased prices as the cost of doing business has gone up.
“We have been absorbing the taxes over the years, but we cannot continue to go on like that, so anytime taxes go up we have no choice but to pass on the cost to consumers,” he said.
Despite the increasing tax pressure and stiff competition, he said the network remains the leading network in the nation’s telecoms industry, with revenue growing last year by 13 per cent. In return, he said the network will increase its investment in improving service quality for subscribers.
