Clarkson Mambo —
While in the past owning and using a cellphone was considered a privilege of the well to do, the government intervened to correct this anomaly and today even the elderly, many of who only know how to press the “answer” button, are proud owners of the gadgets.
People of all walks of life, including herd boys on farms and in the rural areas as well as small children, some still in kindergarten, now own cellphones in their varying forms and sizes with the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) stating that mobile phone penetration in the country now stands at over 96 percent.
In the same vein, use of the internet, primarily driven by the rise in cellphone use, in particular smartphones, has also gradually shot up to over 50 percent of the population.
Combined, the country’s three mobile phone companies have over 10 million active sim cards.
The phenomenal growth in cellphone use has however not been in the same direction that the economy has been taking, particularly industry, which was once the main source of revenue for the Government through taxes but has been dying a slow death.
This has forced authorities to look for new avenues to raise funding with phone users surprisingly becoming the main target as in the past half-decade, every year some form of levy or tax has been introduced targeting the telecommunications sector or phone users in particular.
Last year, the Ministry of Information Communication Technologies, Postal and Courier Services, led the way by introducing an Innovation Fund, whose intention is to support budding technology geeks.
Towards the end of the year, about $6 million was estimated to be in the Fund, into which players in the telecommunications sector contribute.
In the 2017 National Budget, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa took it a notch higher, introducing a “five cents tax for every dollar” of airtime and data that phone users buy, with funds mobilised going towards a Health Fund Levy.
Under what he termed, ‘Talk-Surf and Save a Life,’ Chinamasa said resources raised would be ring-fenced for the purchase of drugs and equipment for public hospitals and clinics, the noblest of intentions.
And hardly two weeks into the New Year, Potraz brew a shocker when it introduced what it termed a “floor price” for bundled services for mobile operators. The regulator set voices services at 12 cents per minute and data at 2 cents a megabyte with effect from January 9, 2017.
This has seen a shocking 1 400 percent increase in data charges by mobile operators. A dollar that could buy 50 megabytes of data can now only buy five megabytes. This is oddly at variance with the role of a regulator, whose mandate is supposed to be ensuring affordability of service for the generality of the population.
Potraz has tried to defend its indefensible move arguing it was meant to “ensure consistent and sustainable long term provision of services to all Zimbabweans” through improving revenue generation for the networks.
Consumers have been forthright in their criticism of the Potraz move, as it smacks of confusion of the highest level. Unlike in the agriculture sector where floor prices are set to protect farmers, the same does not necessarily apply in the telecommunications sector.
The regulator’s concern must be to protect consumers as its main constituency instead of playing to the networks tune. The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe on the other hand appears to be still trying to make sense of what is happening. In the meantime, consumers are overburdened and will pay through the nose to ostensibly assist provide solutions to “problems” which are not of their making.
Affordability is key in promoting communication and use of new technologies as the world revolves around communication which, without it, no economy will prosper.
Regardless of how honourable the authorities intentions are through the various initiatives they have introduced, there is however no honour in burdening an already overburdened and overcharged phone user.
The various taxes, levies and “floor prices” do nothing more than choke growth in the use of telecommunications services, negating, if not reversing strides that have been made in the sector over the past decade.
Innovation is critically required to come up with other funding sources that have nothing to do with the telecommunications sector. – New Ziana.