By Foday Moriba Conteh
Mohamed Rado Swarray, Minister of Information and Communications, disclosed recently that President Julius Maada Bio is seriously concerned about the recent move by mobile telecommunications service providers to drop all promotions to their respective customers.
He said telecom service providers were invited to an emergency meeting with the view of charting the way forward in the best interest of the people.
“We have agreed on a win-win situation, which means that the mobile service providers as well as the public will benefit. We have already formed a committee which is chaired by the Ministry of Information and Communications, so that at the end of the day this committee will develop a road map for the final resolution of this matter,” he said.
The Minister divulged how the mobile companies openly narrated their challenges going further that he assured them of Government’s commitment to create the enabling environment for an improved telecommunication system in Sierra Leone.
There was widespread hue and cry over the implementation of the 2020 Finance Act, which prompted telecom operators to remove all promotions they used to provide for subscribers across the country.
Certain Civil Society activists condemned the latest move taken by the National Telecommunications Commission to increase tax on telecom operators, but the Commission has defended its position that there had been no tax increase.
