Roaming charges in Rwanda were increased last year after a review of fees on roaming services by the country’s regulation board Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agencies (RURA). Now the country has had enough of the charges and they now want the government to ablolish the charges, especially this season.
what is this they are fighting about, initially the users were being charged for only $9 cents and now they have to pay upto $22 cents for calling an operator in Rwanda.
“The increase in taxes meant rates for people calling from other countries went up – by that additional amount,” explained Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the chief marketing officer at MTN Rwanda.
She also said that in Uganda, Burundi and Tanzanian telecom regulators made it extremely expensive for users to phone contacts, as they imposed the same taxes.
“It used to cost Rwf60 to call Uganda and Burundi, now it is around Rwf120 to call Uganda and Rwf350 to Burundi because they increased their rates to 35 US cents. Before we were absorbing the 9 US cents, but is now impossible to absorb the 22 US cents and 35 US cents increments imposed in the countries,” said the Marketing Officer.
“As with all things commercial, the cost is eventually passed onto the end-users. So we have to charge our customers to receive calls because other customers from the East African Community (EAC) region coming to Rwanda are charged by their operators,” she added.