Instituto Nacional das Telecomunicações de Moçambique (INCM)
Maputo, 5 May (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Communications Institute (INCM), the regulatory body for telecommunications, on Tuesday suspended the new tariffs for internet, voice and SMS services, following a recommendation made by the government to review the study that was used to calculate the increased prices of services.
Although described euphemistically as a “recommendation”, the government dispatch was in fact an instruction.
On 27 May, the Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, Amilton Alissone, told reporters that the government had listened to the INCM’s explanation for why it had imposed the new tariffs – but then told the INCM to suspend the new prices, and review the study it had used to calculate them.
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.
The INCM then changed its position and claimed that the only real change it had made was to ban operators from offering unlimited internet access.
The INCM also claimed it intervened to ensure the sustainability of the telecommunications market, and to avoid any collapse. But none of the operators had suggested that they were on the verge of collapse or that the market was in any danger.
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, and eventually the INCM, to think again. In a brief note announcing the suspension of the new tariffs, the INCM said additional studies are underway, in coordination with telecommunication companies, “in order to follow up on the recommendations of the government.”
(AIM)
Ad/pf (334)
