April will be a difficult
month for Zimbabweans with a slew of price hikes expected to take a punishing
toll on consumers and the ailing economy. And today the new mobile tariffs
takes effect.
The government has
increased the price of voice calls as well as internet services provided
through Fibre, WiMax and ADSL. Instead, the telecommunications regulator, using
cost-based analysis, said voice calls should not exceed RTGS$0,22 per minute, a
rise from the current maximum charge of RTGS$0,16. Mobile operators were
proposing a voice tariff of an average RTGS$0,40 per minute. The good news is
that the price of mobile data which remains at 5 cents per MB.
The most significant price
increases came about after Econet, NetOne, Telecel, Africom, TelOne increased
tariffs citing that the foreign exchange rate was making business unviable for
them.
The country’s largest
MNO, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, said effective April 1, 2019 national call
charges will now cost $0, 2157 per minute, which translates to $0, 038 per
second including Value Added Tax, excise and Universal Service Fund.
Netone will also be increasing
its tariffs to $0.2199 per minute. In the case of Telecel, the country’s smallest MNO will be charging
$0,22 per minute or $0,0037 per second.
The charges are up from $0,1600 per minute and $0, 0027 per second.
Local SMSs will now be
going for $0, 0634 up from $0, 0530 per SMS.
Last week , TelOne
announced an increase in tariffs for all its data-based services for RTGS
dollar (RTGS$), while it maintained the old prices for the United States dollar
(USD).
Earlier, ZOL Zimbabwe
had taken the lead by setting new tariffs for its services.
