A solution still has to be found concerning the liberalisation of tariffs for international phone calls. The meetings between the authorities, new operators and Mauritius Telecom were expected to lead to a consensus, but the problem remains. At least, all the stakeholders now know that a joint committee ? government and private sector ? is necessary in order to study the situation and find a happy ending.

The centre of the controversy is in fact Order N° 4 of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA), in force since 14th May, which states that all new operators will have to charge the same rates as those of Mauritius Telecom. For instance, City Calls, supposed to offer a service at Rs 8 a minute during peak hours will be forced to increase its tariffs to between Rs 10.20 and Rs 15.60 a minute. ?This will put an end to competitiveness,? according to the director of Cityhall, which has decided to lodge a complaint in Court.

The new investors, who have created an organisation called the ACT, claim that this regulation will kill off their activities in Mauritius. They do not see how they can compete with MT, who has been in the business for years, if they cannot bring down prices. ?We have nothing to gain if we sell our product at the same price as MT since Mauritians will never use our services,? the president of Act, Colin Taylor, says. But MT does not agree; John Leung Yinko thinks that it is perfectly natural that the ICTA should impose a certain limit.

Unacceptable tone

New operators are really unhappy with this measure. The director of Outremers Telecom thinks they should have been informed of the possibility of such a measure before taking the decision to come to Mauritius. He says that he does not exclude the eventuality of terminating their operations here.

This must have annoyed the Prime Minister, Paul Bérenger, who said that he did not appreciate the tone of certain operators, which he qualified as ?unacceptable.? He explained that there must have been a misunderstanding regarding telecommunication order n°4. He asserted that, ?liberalisation is on? and that there is confusion about the order and what it really involves. He contented himself with saying that we have to wait for further developments.

At least, new operators can be satisfied with the fact that the government is aware of the problem. The minimum tariff that it was to impose for international calls was finally abandoned. This might be a first step for the new investors. Moreover, the prime minister stressed that there should be ?positive discrimination? towards the new operators. This might give hope to some of them, who have even had to stop their marketing campaign because of the ICTA regulation.