{"id":11631,"date":"2019-10-12T21:03:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T21:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=11631"},"modified":"2019-10-12T21:03:17","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T21:03:17","slug":"mobile-data-must-never-expire-communication-minister-directs-telcos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2019\/10\/12\/mobile-data-must-never-expire-communication-minister-directs-telcos\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile data must never expire \u2013 Communication Minister directs telcos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Communications Minister\u00a0has directed Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to ensure that unused data and voice bundles purchased by their subscribers do not expire.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said the unused\u00a0data must be rolled over\u00a0to the next data purchased by subscribers.<\/p>\n<p>The letter addressed to the Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Mr Joe Anokye on Friday explained that the move is to\u00a0minimise the negative impact of the current mode of deduction of the Communication Service Tax by the Telecommunication Companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCST should be treated the same way VAT, NHIL, GETFund levy and all other taxes and levies imposed on entities doing business in Ghana are treated\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;All unused data and voice bundles purchased by subscribers do not expire and must be rolled over with the next recharge,&#8221; the Minister urged.<\/p>\n<p>The letter copied to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of MTN and Vodafone as well as the two Deputy Ministers of Communication, Mr George Nenyi Andah and Mr Vincent Sowah-Odotei comes on the back of Communication Service Tax which was increased from 6% to 9% effective October 1, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Per this tax,\u00a0\u00a0every \u00a21 of recharge data purchased, a 9% CST fee is deducted, leaving the consumer with\u00a0\u00a20.93 of the purchased data.<\/p>\n<p>This is wrong, the Ministry of Communication held in its release.<\/p>\n<p>According to the ministry,\u00a0 the\u00a0\u00a0&#8220;extraordinary upfront deduction of CST and notification of same to subscribers must stop with immediate effect.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The full release from the ministry has been published below.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_57279\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"Telcos directed to stop charging 9% Communication Service Tax on subscribers \" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/429822005\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;access_key=key-lqI80c8Sv4AAgSzY1YIY&amp;show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7333333333333333\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0Communications Minister\u00a0has directed Mobile Network Operators (MNO) to ensure that unused data and voice bundles purchased by their subscribers do not expire. Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said the unused\u00a0data must be rolled over\u00a0to the next data purchased by subscribers. The letter addressed to the Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Mr Joe Anokye on Friday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[3559,4944,4398,3500,7396,2260,192,4924,6864,1212,4819,6431,1502,6206,8629,10976,3027,8632],"class_list":["post-11631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-communication-minister","tag-communication-service-tax","tag-communications-minister","tag-cst","tag-data","tag-getfund","tag-ghana","tag-joe-anokye","tag-ministers","tag-mtn","tag-nca","tag-release","tag-tax","tag-taxes","tag-telcos","tag-ursula","tag-ursula-owusu-ekuful","tag-vat"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}