Mozambique: Protest over telecom costs ‘suspended but not revoked’ – Watch

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Mozambique: Protest over telecom costs ‘suspended but not revoked’ – Watch

8:00 CAT | 06 Jun 2024

FILE - On the 18th of May, hundreds of young Mozambicans marched in Maputo against the INCM measure, claiming it was a decision to limit access to information and promising to resort to the courts, claiming it had no legal basis. [File photo via Quiteria Guirengane/Facebook]

The Mozambican civil society movement challenging the new telecoms tariffs announced on Wednesday that it has suspended its protests, threatening to resume them if the regulator and operators insist on ‘inappropriate’ measures.

This position was announced yesterday by the movement which, on 18 May, held a demonstration with hundreds of young people in Maputo against the new tariffs.

This comes after the National Communications Institute of Mozambique (INCM) announcing on Tuesday that it was suspending the resolution that sets minimum limits for telecommunications tariffs, as directed by the government, and would carry out ‘additional studies’ before going ahead with new measures.

‘Suspended and not revoked’, just as regulator’s resolution

In light of this position, the civil society movement announced yesterday that the protest march scheduled for 20 June is ‘suspended’ but ‘not revoked’, just as the regulator’s resolution was ‘suspended and not revoked’.

‘We reserve the right to reconvene if the measures to be adopted by the regulator and the operators once again prove to be out of step with reality and the current problems of the Mozambican people,’ reads the statement presented to journalists yesterday in Maputo by the movement’s spokesperson, activist Quitéria Guirengane.

READ: Mozambique: INCM suspends new telecommunications tariffs – AIM report

‘Additional studies are underway, in coordination with the telephone operators, in order to follow up on the Cabinet’s recommendations,’ said a statement from the INCM, released on Tuesday, confirming the suspension, after fierce opposition from society, of the resolution setting minimum limits for telecommunications tariffs.

On 28 May, Mozambique’s Cabinet recommended that INCM, the sector’s regulator, suspend the decision that led to the increase in tariffs, in order to apply prices adjusted to the market.

‘The regulator is suspending the measure, while it improves the studies, so that we have decisions that are better adjusted to what the market demands, but also to what the public interests are,’ said the deputy minister of transport and communications, Amilton Alissene, at a press conference at the end of the Cabinet’s weekly session.

‘We will return to the previous situation, the situation we were in, as far as tariffs are concerned, while the regulator refines the studies, that’s the recommendation the government is leaving to the regulator,’ he said.

The deputy minister of transport and communications said that an evaluation of the market will be carried out by the INCM in conjunction with the operators.

At issue is the INCM’s publication on 19 February of a resolution establishing new minimum tariffs in the telecommunications sector for voice, messaging and data, the adaptation of which by the three operators since 4 May has led to a real increase in tariffs and the end of unlimited packages.

On the 18th of May, hundreds of young Mozambicans marched in Maputo against the measure, claiming it was a decision to limit access to information and promising to resort to the courts, claiming it had no legal basis.

‘It’s a political measure to silence Mozambicans,’ activist Quitéria Guirengane told Lusa during the protest.

‘We want to demand the total repeal of the resolution approving these tariffs, which are completely insensitive, immoral, anti-competitive, inhumane, unsustainable and disproportionate, because they seriously violate our fundamental rights, whether the right of access to information, the right to education, to work, to identity, enshrined in the Constitution,’ she added on the same occasion.

Source: Lusa / TV Sucesso