Burundi, Tanzania given six months to adopt East African call tariffs

The governments of Tanzania and Burundi has been given six months to harmonize their phone call tariffs with the rest of the East African Community.

The harmonisation of the call tariffs is done under the EAC Roaming Framework dubbed One Network Area (ONA), which was signed in 2014 by the Council of Ministers.

The Sectoral Committee on Transport, Communications, and Meteorology, which met in Bujumbura, Burundi, directed the two countries to harmonize the call tariffs by 30th August 2023 and provide the status of implementation to the next Summit of the EAC Heads of State.

The EAC council of ministers capped the retail tariff (on phone calls) at 0.10 dollars (about Shs380) per minute inclusive of taxes, for traffic originating and ending within EAC. The wholesale tariff was capped the maximum (inter-operator tariff) at 0.07 dollars (about Shs2,580) per minute for traffic originating and ending within EAC.

ONA requires mobile network operators to renegotiate and reduce wholesale tariffs and a waiver of excise taxes and surcharges on incoming voice traffic while establishing wholesale and retail price caps on outbound ONA traffic. The framework states also that there shall be no charges for receiving roaming calls originating within the EAC in addition to the removal of surcharges for international Traffic originating and terminating within the EAC.

However, Tanzania has maintained the charges, and, one pays Shs300 for every minute of call received while in Tanzania.

Mr John Bosco Kalisa, executive director of  the East African Business Council (EABC), said Tanzania and Burundi had pledged to join the network back in 2015.

“We will continuously urge Tanzania and Burundi to join the network,” insisted Mr Kalisa during his meeting with EAC secretary-general Peter Mathuki.

Tanzania, one of the three founder members of the EAC has dragged her feet on several EAC initiatives, raising doubt over its commitment to the region’s integration despite hosting the bloc’s capital at Arusha.