The Finance Act 2018 has demonstrated that its effects were far-reaching and all-encompassing. In the past week, the developments of the Act have seen considerable revisions for data, voice and services that have forced service providers adjust the pricing of their products of upwards. The changes have been reported by Safaricom for their voice and data services, as well as FTTH that saw a notable jump to reflect said changes, as well as that for JTL and Zuku.
Not to be left behind, Telkom, Kenya’s third largest operator has announced changes to its voice, SMS and data billing.
“The assent of the Finance Act 2018 into Law has resulted in the review of taxes that affect our services to you. More specifically, Excise Duty tax on Voice, SMS and Internet Data services, has been reviewed to a rate of 15%, up from 10%,” reads a statement from Telkom.
While other players’ revisions have since been implemented, Telkom’s will be effective as of midnight, Tuesday, October 23, 2018.
The changes will be as follows:
On-net calls will cost KES 2.30 per minute instead of KES 2.00.
Off-net calls will cost 30 cents more than KES 3.00 that was standard before the law.
All SMS, off-net or otherwise will cost KES 1.10.
Additionally, pay-as-you-go (PAYG) billing for mobile data will see an extra 30 cents for every MB used, meaning that subscribers will now pay KES 4.30 for PAYG.
However, it should be noted that mobile data bundle plans and their respective prices will remain unchanged.
Users on post pay will service an extra 5% excise duty tax, whereas broadband and fixed voice services will see the introduction of 15% excise duty tax.
“Although these additional taxes will lead to an increase in the cost of Voice and Data services to our customers, Telkom remains committed to delivering the best value to them,” says Aldo Mareuse, Chief Executive Officer of Telkom.
