The government of Uganda has meddled in the services of the telecommunication companies by setting connection and inter-connection call prices.

Although the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) Executive Director, Godfrey Mutabaazi has called it harmonization of tariffs in the market, it contravenes the rules of free market or liberalization that came into force in 1987.

In a liberalized market structure the forces of demand and supply determine the prices.

In the recent walk to work demonstrations against high prices of commodities, President Museveni clearly said the government has no powers to determine the prices of commodities.

The President asked the citizens to be calm until there is boom in agricultural harvest. On fuel prices he said drilling of the oils in Bunyoro or importing fuel from Southern Sudan would solve the high prices of petroleum products meaning more supply of products would check the high prices.

However, the government telecommunication regulatory body, UCC has put a directive to the telecommunication companies not to connect their customers at less than 91 shillings per minute.

The directive also disallows telecom companies to charge on-net calling rates at less than 70% of inter-connection rates. The current inter-connection rate is at 131 shillings per minute.

This means Ugandans who have been enjoying low call rates of 1 shilling per second or free calls on some net-works are going to suffer high prices due to government decisions.

Ugandans may wonder the government that would be happy for its citizens to enjoy the advantages of competition, it is the one making the life more miserable.

The Airtel Public Relations Officer, Joseph Kanyamunyu asks government to let the theory of demand and supply to apply.

Sources from some telecom companies say the directive might be a deal between the regulatory body and some companies which feel advantaged with the directive.

By Issa Asuman