The CEO of Vodafone Ghana has debunked claims that the move to charge Communications Service Tax (CST) directly from customer’s account was a ploy to make government unpopular.

Patience Obo-Nai says telecommunications companies were acting in accordance with the law by implementing an act that demanded they charged the CST.

“What will be the interest of a multinational in making government unpopular?” she quizzed.

“We are law-abiding and what we did was to implement an Act which had been amended. We collected the tax upfront per our understanding of the law,” she told host of Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Daniel Dadzie.

She was responding to the Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu Ekuful’s claim that the move was to make government unpopular.

The minister had said telcos are acting on the assertion that if government “won’t give them at least four weeks [before the imposition of the 3% increment in the CST takes effect,] they would do it [pass it on to consumers] in the most painful manner.”

Although Mrs Obo-Nai admitted that government was at the receiving end of some attack from the public after CST was implemented, she stressed it was not their intention.

Meanwhile, she has called on customers to choose personal dialogues with their service providers rather than lamenting publicly on social media.

She believes ranting on social media is likely to affect investor confidence.

“For the consumer who speaks even louder on social media than even call you directly, if you have any doubts, it will reinforce that you are taking something from them,” she observed.

“We will prefer that when issues like this arise, it will be helpful if we are not perceived as thieves robbing the consumer because it affects investor interest,” she said

According to her, going on social media to rant about problems is not the best approach to get their concerns resolved.

Telcos are expected to stop the upfront deductions of the 9% CST tax from November 26, 2019.