The Chief Executive of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, has justified the 15.0% increase in tariffs for all its products and services, insisting, it was needed to help save the business.

According to him, the company had to finally take the decision to save the business after absorbing the cost for years.

“We had gotten to the point where all our cost inputs have gone up significantly, and we have to find ways to share this cost with our subscribers”, he said.

Mr. Adadevoh was speaking on PM EXPRESS BUSINESS EDITION with host George Wiafe which will be aired today Thursday, February 15, 2024 on the JOYNEWS channel at 9 pm.

He argued that the company also suffered from the deteriorating macro-economic conditions in the country, forcing management to adjust the tariff.

“MTN for instance was exposed to inflation pressures of more than 40% on the average in 2023. But your price increase was 15%, that is absorbing 25% of the cost”, he said.

“If you look at MTN records over 7 to 10 years, you acknowledge that there has not been any increase in prices in those periods”, he added.

He maintained that the company had no other option but to pass on some of the cost to consumers to remain operational.

“So we think that it’s very unfair, to say that MTN has not absorbed some of the cost, when it comes to our operations in Ghana today”, he stressed.

Background 

MTN last month announced a 15.0% increase in tariffs for its products and services, effective February 7, 2023.

The review reflected two changes – first, the implementation of the statutory 2.5 percentage poinst increase in VAT from 12.5% to 15% across all services. This was expected to affect both prepaid and post-paid customers.

Secondly, MTN Ghana proceeded with a 15% average upward review of its mobile data tariffs which was originally announced in November 2022, and was suspended.

The increase in mobile data tariffs affected both pay monthly and pay-as-you-go users.

Mobile Money Fraud

Reacting to complain of the company not doing enough to halt Mobile Money fraud, Mr. Adadevoh said MTN has invested a lot of funds in stopping the canker.

“We have started blacklisting SIM’s of subscribers who are found to be engaging in these fraudulent activities”.

“We have also gone ahead to identify handsets that are being used to undertake these activities and collectively the telecom operators have decided to blacklist these handset”, he added.

He assured that the company is working on other measures to deal with the challenge.

National Roaming Programme

In 2022, MTN Ghana and Vodafone announced a strategic partnership deal to pilot the National Roaming programme in the Volta Region.

The programme is intended to facilitate the universal access to accelerate digitalisation.

Mr. Adadevoh disclosed that another operator, AT is also on board.

Expressing optimism about the programme, he stated that it provides an opportunity for telecom  operators to share  infrastructure in their quest to improve service delivery to subscribers.