The upfront charge of the 9 per cent Communications Service Tax (CST) has been reversed as at November 26, according to the Telecoms Chamber.
Ken Ashigbey, CEO of the Telecoms Chamber, made this known in an interview. He said all players in the telecommunication space will to this effect unveil a new cost of data and call tariff in line with the Communications Service Tax (CST).
He revealed that “Yesterday, (November 26), marked the end of the 8-week so the upfront deduction had stopped. You’ll find out that our members had started passing the 9 per cent CST onto the tariff. So, you’d find out that the price of the tariff had changed and the only reason is that the tax has been added to it.
“What then will happen is that if you bought 10 cedis credit, you will have that on your phone. Then you decide that you buy a bundle of 2 cedis so that bundle will include the CST,” he concluded.
This action comes after the Communications Ministry warned it did punish Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) who defied the recent directive on the Communications Services Tax (CST).
Honourable Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Communications Minister, issued a statement recently, asking all telecommunication companies in Ghana to stop the upfront deduction of the 9% Communications Service Tax (CST).
This she did, to stop telecommunications companies from giving their customers less airtime than they purchased.
The implementation of the CST has been a very controversial topic as mobile phones users believe they are being cheated by the Telcos.
The increase in the CST was announced by the Finance Minister in the Supplementary Budget he presented to parliament. The increase from 6% to 9%, is been applied to any recharge purchase by subscribers. This means, for every GH¢1 of recharge purchased, CST fee of 9%, which is equivalent to GH¢0.07 is charged, leaving the subscriber ¢0.93.
Mr Ashigbey revealed that the new cost of calls and data will be announced soon.
