Mozambique Suspends New Telecom Tariffs Amid Public Outcry

Maputo — The Mozambican government on Tuesday suspended the new tariffs which the National Communications Institute (INCM), the regulatory body for telecommunications, had decreed on 2 May.

After the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson, Deputy Transport Minister Amilton Alissone, told reporters that the government had listened to the INCM's explanation for why it had imposed new tariffs for internet, voice and SMS services.However, the government was not convinced by the INCM's arguments. Alissone said that the government believes that the new tariffs are too high and would place an undue burden on consumers.

The government has ordered the INCM to review the new tariffs and to come up with a new proposal that is more affordable for consumers. The INCM has been given 30 days to submit its new proposal to the government.Then it recommended that the INCM suspend the new prices, and review the study it had used to calculate them. Although delicately termed a "recommendation', this was effectively an instruction.

The government's decision to suspend the new tariffs was a clear sign that it was not happy with the INCM's handling of the matter. The government had given the INCM a clear instruction to review the new tariffs and to come up with a new proposal that was more affordable for consumers.

The INCM has not yet commented on the government's decision, but it is clear that the government is not going to tolerate any further delays or excuses. The INCM has been given 30 days to submit its new proposal to the government. If the INCM fails to meet this deadline, the government may take further action.Alissone said the INCM will meet with the telecommunications operators to inform them of the government's decision, after which the operators should revert to the previous tariffs.

The INCM Chairperson, Thua Mote, initially claimed that the new tariffs would reduce prices and would allow greater "digital inclusion' - but consumers soon worked out that in reality the INCM had greatly increased prices. A group of university students protested to the INCM that the new tariffs had smuggled in price increases of between 100 and 300 per cent.

The INCM changed its position and claimed that the only real change it had made was to ban operators from offering unlimited internet access.It claimed that the tariff for voice calls has dropped from six meticais (about nine US cents) per minute to five meticais per minute. The average price of the data service fell from 2.30 to 1.08 meticais per megabyte.

But the INCM's initial announcements were deceptive, since nobody buys telecommunications services one phone call or one megabyte at a time. There are a bewildering variety of packages and bonuses offered by the three mobile phone companies (T-Mcel, Vodacom and Movitel) and by the various internet service providers, making it difficult to calculate the average rise or decline in prices.

No company had requested that the regulator push up tariffs, and none had claimed that the tariffs practiced were anti-competitive. It seemed that it was only the INCM that imagined there was a threat to the sustainability of the market.

A wave of protest led the government to think again. At a march to the INCM Maputo headquarters on 18 May, one civil society activist, Quiteria Guirengane warned that pushing up telecommunications prices might be a political measure "to silence Mozambicans'.