Telecommunications company Airtel has increased their call, data and short message tariff rates after the increase of taxes by the government.
A statement by the Managing Director Prasanta Das Sarma said that they were constrained to increase they call data and sms tariffs in view of the increased taxes by the government. The increase will take effect midnight of October 22.
“In view of the recent increase in excise duty, other taxes and rising input costs, we are constrained to increase our headline voice and data tariffs by 30 cents each and our SMS tariff by 10 cents effective from midnight tonight,” read the Statement in part.
This comes barely a week after Safaricom also increased their rates as a result of the taxes.
Safaricom was the first telco to implement the change, despite being the most expensive service provider.
Safaricom has also been the first to implement the mobile money transfer charges, increasing the rates by between Ksh1 and Ksh3.
The government said that the money that will be collected from the increment will be used to finance the Universal Health Care programme.
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The Finance Bill 2018 was passed by parliament and assented into law by the President, tax on mobile calls and data rose to 15 per cent from the previous 10 per cent.
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