The government said on Tuesday 11 June that mobile phone operators are working to restore the voice, data and SMS tariffs previously charged in the country.
Speaking at the end of another ordinary session of the Council of Ministers, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce, Ludovina Bernardo, explained that the national communications regulator is already in talks with the operators in order to make the process flexible and eliminate the constraints.
She recalled that the government had ordered the immediate suspension of the minimum tariffs, saying that the decision had been taken on the basis of market analyses.
Recently, Mozambique’s National Communications Institute (INCM) announced the suspension of the resolution that set minimum limits for telecoms tariffs, following government guidelines. According to a statement released by the Lusa news agency, the INCM will carry out “additional studies” before implementing new measures.
The decision comes after strong social protest against the resolution establishing new minimum limits for telecoms tariffs. According to the document, “additional studies are being carried out in coordination with the telephone operators, with the aim of meeting the recommendations of the Council of Ministers”.
The DE reported earlier this month that the telecoms regulator had directed operators to withdraw unlimited data and voice packages to avoid market collapse and unfair competition. “The prices of telephone communications are no longer the same. We have banned the implementation of unlimited packages, which were damaging the economy. The 30-day packages continue, but the consumer can’t talk in an unlimited way to the point where it costs him zero,” said the INCM’s Chairman of the Board of Directors (chairmans), Tuaha Mote, at the time.
“As regulators, we assumed that we had limited the prices of unlimited packages by dictating the entry of new packages. If we had let the market continue like this, it would have collapsed. That’s why the regulator took the decision to set minimum prices,” said the INCM official, adding that if the communications market collapsed, the country risked being left with just one operator.
