Maputo, 20 Jun (AIM) – The Mozambican Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, Amilton Alissone, believes that mobile phone companies may gradually resume the previous tariffs for internet, voice and SMS services, following a recommendation made by the government to review the study that was used to impose absurdly high prices.
Although the National Communications Institute (INCM), the country’s regulatory body for telecommunications, suspended its polemical dispatch and mobile phone companies have started to “correct” the prices that they were practicing, consumers are now protesting that the prices are far from returning to the pre-February levels. In particular, telecommunications operators have abolished those packages which used to allow for unlimited access to the Internet.
According to Alissone, speaking to reporters, on Wednesday, in Maputo, the Ministry of Transport and Communications is following the operators’ tariff reinstatement calmly, in compliance with the law.
“The INCM, as the regulatory body, has complied with the government’s recommendation and the operators are updating their tariffs. We have to understand that this is a process”, he said.
The Deputy Minister said the INCM dispatch was indeed suspenfed and then the operators began to re-establish the tariffs as agreed with the regulator.
With regard to the updating of telecoms packages by the operators, he said that the most important thing is to understand the dictates of the law.
“The market is free, the operators are working to ensure the implementation of tariffs that they believe cover the costs of their operations. If these tariffs are the ones that have been in practice, the operators will certainly put them into practice to the extent that they cover their costs”, he said.
The new tariffs caused protests among consumers, who dismissed as untrue the initial INCM claim that prices had not risen. Such was the outcry that the government stepped in and told the INCM to cancel the new tariffs and return to the old ones.
(AIM)
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