Tariffs of mobile data and voice calls are expected to go up in in the coming months, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has hinted.

According to him, huge capital expenditures coupled with high taxes and other operating expenses have ballooned the cost of doing business for telecom operators.

“The industry has to increase prices because the cost of doing business has gone up, but the individual ones, I would not be able to talk about that”, Ken Ashigbey, Chief Executive Officer disclose this at the Tax Contribution Report for 2021 which forms part of the Mobile Transparency Initiative Report for 2021.

 “We don’t talk about prices, so I don’t know what the individual [telecom] members will do. But if you consider the fact that the cost of doing business has gone up, even the water producers association has increased the prices of water [sachet and bottled], even the market women. So naturally, what is going to happen”, he quizzed.

This comes days after Ghana’s biggest telecommunications operator MTN Ghana rescinded its decision to increase its data tariff by 15 %.

Mr Ashigbey also lamented on the overburdening of the telecoms industry with taxes.

This he believes could further drop profit margins, cripple the industry and reduce the revenue government receives from the telecoms sector by way of taxes.