MTN Ghana intensified its call on the government to waive the five per cent national fiscal stabilization levy (NFSL) which telecoms operators and other businesses have been paying since 2013.
The new government waived some taxes in its maiden budget announced recently but failed to waive to the NFSL which has outlived its purpose and it is hurting the affected businesses.
The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Mr Ebenezer Twum Asante made the call at this year’s MTN stakeholders and media forum held in Accra today.
He explained that; “waiving the NFSL, which is deducted before profit is declared, will go a long way to make the telecom industry robust to continue its positive contributions to the economy of Ghana”.
Although the levy was introduced with sunset clauses, it had continued and it was time it was waived, he told journalists at the event.
The previous government introduced the NFSL on July 15, 2013 to help reduce Ghana’s growing deficit. It was pegged at five per cent of the accounting profits of specified companies and institutions.
The categories of companies selected to pay this special tax include , telecom service providers, banks, (excluding rural and community banks) non-banking financial institutions, insurance companies, breweries, inspection and valuation companies, companies providing mining support services, as well as shipping lines, maritime and airport terminals.
It was to last for 18 months, ending January, 2015, but this is March 2017 and the tax is still in force.
Meanwhile, the previous government, which introduced it, is said to had promised they were going to remove it from this year’s budget, but they lost the elections so the onus is now lies on the new government to get rid of it.
Network expansion
In a bid continue to provide ubiquitous telecom services for its customers, Mr Asante revealed that the telecom industry giant would spend a princely amount of $143 million on network upgrading and expansion this year.
He was quick to add that MTN Ghana would roll out 197 Long Term Evolution (LTE) popularly known as 4G sites across the country to complement to the existing 275 sites spread nationwide. This will bring the total number of LTE sites in the country to 475, Mr Asante said.
He was optimistic that these expansion programmes would increase network capacity, improve data provision, and network security.
The MTN Ghana CEO reiterated MTN’s commitment to making continued investments in the network to keep up with changes in technology and customer demand, to ensure that customers’ selection of MTN as the network of choice is consistently reinforced.
“The fact that over 19 million subscribers in Ghana have selected MTN as their network of choice means we have a certain responsibility”.
African Eye Report
