Telecom subscribers in the country are likely to pay an additional N261.18bn on voice calls, short message service and data in one year if the Senate passes the proposed Communications Service Bill into law. The bill, sponsored by Senator Ali Ndume from Borno South, aims to charge nine per cent on communication services and pay-per-view TV services. Ndume noted that the bill, which had passed the first reading at the upper chamber of the National Assembly, would impose levies on electronic communication services like voice calls, SMS, data usage – both from telecommunication services providers and Internet service providers and pay-per-view TV services. Meanwhile, network operators under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria pointed out that the proposed nine per cent tax would make communication expensive and in turn make life difficult for the average Nigerians. The Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, said communication was presently one of the most affordable basic needs of Nigerians but cautioned that the proposed increase was offensive and would make it inaccessible to many. In fact, the bill specifically stipulated that the subscribers would be liable for the payment of the tax. Section 2 of the bill reads, “The tax shall be paid together with the Electronic Communication Service charge payable to the service provider by the consumer of the service. “The tax is due and payable on any supply of Electronic Communication Service within the time period specified under sub-clause (5) of whether or not the person making the supply is permitted or authorised to provide Electronic Communication Services.” The latest monthly subscribers’ data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission indicated that the number of active subscribers to mobile services in Nigeria through the four network operators stood at 176.62 million as of August 2019. MTN leads the industry with 65.71 million active subscribers, followed by Airtel with 47.92 million, Globacom has 47.27 million, 9mobile has 15.6 million and Visafone spectrum owned by MTN has 119,386 customers. According to the data obtained from the NCC, in the year ended December 2018, the total outgoing mobile-to-mobile minutes of calls from MTN, Globacom, Airtel, 9mobile, Smile and Ntel was 114.20 billion minutes., however, showed that at an average of N24 per minute, offered by the network operators, subscribers in the country spent N2.74tn on calls within one year. But, with an additional nine per cent tax on voice calls, if the bill is passed into law, subscribers may have to spend about N246.67bn more on voice calls only, because according to analysts, operators would eventually pass the increase to the final consumers. The analysis showed that MTN subscribers may have to pay N29.43 as against N27/min; 9mobile subscribers may have to pay N32.7/min as against N30/min; Airtel users may have to pay N32.7 as against N30/min, and Glo subscribers may have to pay N7.2/ min as against N6.6/min. The 2018 industry data from the NCC showed that the total volume of SMS sent in the year ended December 2018 was 9,565,167,407, which implied that subscribers paid N38.26bn for SMS in the 12 months, at N4 per SMS. With an additional nine per cent tax on SMS, subscribers will spend about N3.44bn more on messages as the unit cost of SMS could rise to N4.36 to enable network operators to remit the nine per cent tax to the government. Also, NCC statistics showed the total number of international SMS sent through the four mobile network operators, including Smile and Ntel, in the previous year was 51,534,609. At N15/international SMS, subscribers, therefore, spent N773.02m. Thus, if the nine per cent tax is imposed on international SMS, subscribers are likely to pay N69.57m more as the tariff could rise to N16.35 per international SMS. Industry data also indicated that 188,012,210 outgoing mobile roaming minutes were recorded in the previous year, at an average of N288 per minute, which was responsible for the N54.15bn subscribers spent on roaming the previous year. With a nine per cent tax, the international call tariff may rise to an average of N314 per minute to make allowance for the nine per cent tax the network operators would remit to the government. Thus, subscribers may likely spend about N4.87bn more on international calls.
Source: Punch
