Many Ghanaians have raised concerns over the upward adjustment of the Communication Service Tax (CST) on October 1 - from 6 percent to 9 percent - affecting all communication services in the country.

The government made the announcement during the 2019 mid-year budget review by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, thereby waiving the tax on luxury vehicles and increasing the Energy Sector Levy (ESLA) and the Communications Service Tax (CST).

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications in a statement explained the implementation of the new levy, thus: For every GHS1 of recharge purchased, a 9 percent CST fee will be charged leaving GHS0.93 for the purchase of products and services.

Below is an illustration of the CST calculation for all the major telecommunication service providers according to the Communications Chamber:

For every GHS1 of recharge, the Value Added Tax (VAT) for Customer Scratch Card value will be at a 12.5 percent which translates to 0.11 pesewas.

National Health Insurance Levy (NHIL) tax rate value will be at 2.5 percent which translates to 0.02 pesewas.

Ghana Education Trust Fund Levy (GETFL) will be at 2.5 percent which translates to 0.02 pesewas.

Communications Service Tax (CST) rate will be at 9 percent which translates to 0.07 pesewas.

The subtotal left for customers to get from their telecommunications services will be at 77.97 percent which translates to 0.78 pesewas.

The statement further revealed that customers of various major telecommunications services providers would be notified by their service providers of the changes when they recharge or use products and services.

Current telecommunication charges for Calls/Data/SMS

MTN Ghana

MTN Ghana will now charge locally; 0.1103/min (on-net), 0.1365/min (off-net), local SMS rates will charge 0.0473 (on-net), and 0.0578 (off-net) while international call rates will charge 0.1575 per minute.

Vodafone Ghana

Vodafone Ghana will charge a 12.5 pesewas tariff on all local calls and browsing.

AirtelTigo

AirtelTigo will charge a 10.8 pesewas tariff on all local calls and 10.8 pesewas for calls to other networks.