By Umaru Fofana
The Presidents of Ivory Coast and Guinea have signed a commitment to remove roaming charges on mobile phone telecommunications in the Mano River Union (MRU) countries, the head of Sierra Leone’s telecoms regulator, NATCOM, has told Politico.
Momoh Konteh says a meeting on Monday in the Guinean capital, Conakry “will bring together all four MRU member countries [including]…Liberia and Sierra Leone to sign an agreement to let the ONE AREA NETWORK come into force”.
This means that calls to and from all four member countries will be charged as local calls.
Konteh said the president of Sierra Leone had not yet signed “but we have already got approval from His Excellency [President Ernest Bai Koroma]”. He said the issue was a “regulatory” one hence “the different regulators “are responsible for the joint approval”.
No exact time has been given as to when this will start, but when it does it will also see the use of data across borders at no extra charge.
At present Sierra Leone charges one of the highest for calls in West Africa. And while mobile phone operators in Guinea charge $ 10 per 3gigabyte data, in Liberia they charge $25 and in Sierra Leone it costs $45.
The Conakry meeting will also discuss the quality of service in the four countries and ways of improving it.
A spokesperson for Airtel Sierra Leone, June Rose says they welcome the move to remove roaming charges. “As long as it is led by the regulator, NATCOM, we support it and will do as agreed with operators in other countries”. She would not go into other issues saying “that is all we can say for now”.
An official at Africell says there has been “no detailed communication yet on the matter” but added: “we should be able to work with the regulator on it after all it will not be at any additional cost if the charges are removed in the other member countries”.
The source who prefers anonymity cited the recent reduction in tariff on international calls from 34 US cents to 24 which he said happened at the behest of NATCOM.
(C) Politico 19/05/16
