The system was adopted following widespread international incoming calls fraud commissioned by dishonest mobile phones operators.
Speaking at the TCRA yesterday, Works, Transport and Communications minister Prof Makame Mbarawa said the new system would allow the government to obtain the actual tax from mobile phone companies.
Speaking at the TCRA yesterday, Works, Transport and Communications minister Prof Makame Mbarawa said the new system would allow the government to obtain the actual tax from mobile phone companies.
While TRA manually calculated the taxes to be paid by telecom firms from their prepaid airtime, the new system would help to capture electronic top-up voucher earlier not monitored.
According to TRA’s Telecom Taxation Manager Godwin Barongo the current system being used by the authority involves tallying of imported voucher minus available prepaid airtime for each firm.
“We have also been monitoring the number of prepaid voucher imported from the manufacturer in South Africa and so the taxes charged are based on manual calculations,” he told reporters yesterday.
Dr Ali Simba, the TCRA Director General said the new system will include developing selective software specifically for local mobile phone airtime traffic.
The monitoring unit has five modules for International incoming calls, mobile money transactions, mobile phones registration and monitoring and as well as quality monitoring system.
The monitoring unit has five modules for International incoming calls, mobile money transactions, mobile phones registration and monitoring and as well as quality monitoring system.
For the mobile money system, as of March this year, there were over sh5.5trn transactions where TRA collected sh35.9bn, he said.
The system has recorded quality concerns from some mobile phone operating companies whose signals become weak especially when the end user calls another telecom operator.
The system has recorded quality concerns from some mobile phone operating companies whose signals become weak especially when the end user calls another telecom operator.
“We have pending cases reported by clients from the same mobile operators and we have started working on the matter,” he stated.
The minister aired quality concerns from his experience as a mobile phone user, directing the regulator to stick to its guns to see to it that telecom operators are put in line according to the law.
The minister aired quality concerns from his experience as a mobile phone user, directing the regulator to stick to its guns to see to it that telecom operators are put in line according to the law.
The minister similarly TRA and TCRA officials to reach complementary regulatory perceptions on excise duty charged from mobile money transactions.
The minister’s concern is that while the government has been taxing only cash-in and not cash-out, mobile firms stand to make extra profits since there is little transaction in cash-in as compared to cash-out.
The minister’s concern is that while the government has been taxing only cash-in and not cash-out, mobile firms stand to make extra profits since there is little transaction in cash-in as compared to cash-out.
Prof Mbarawa reiterated the government’s decision to switch off all fake mobile phones come June 16 saying the decision is based on health, security and value for money factors.
“The fake phones have not been verified on the level of radiation, are easy to corrupt, have poor hearing quality and thus not easy to monitor by security systems,” he declared, letting the cat out of the bag.
Kenya switched off fake cell phones in 2014, and figures available at TCRA indicates that since the government announced the plan to phase out fake phones, the purchase rate has slowed to 18 percent of all new phones acquired by March this year up from 30 percent in December last year.
The government is also planning to cancel broadcasting and frequency licenses issued to telecommunication companies which have not made any investments and are not operating,, the minister added.
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