Over Sh90billion collected from international calls via monitoring system, says TCRA

Dar es Salaam. For the period of five years when the Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring System (TTMS) was operational, more than Sh93.6 billion was generated as revenue from international calls.

The Director General of the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Mr James Kilaba disclosed on Friday January 18 during an event to handover TTMS to the authority.

The event was graced by President John Magufuli.

“Through this system, the government was able to find a new source of revenue from international calls that are coming in or out the country,” the TCRA DG said.

According to the DG, the system was also able to increase international commissions to the local networks, where in the five year period their per minute commission increased by $0.04 to $0.05 cents.

He said, “Before the system became operational, local networks were receiving $0.08 to $0.09 cents per minute in any international call, but through TTMS they are currently getting $0.13 cents per minute of any international call.”

He said the system enabled the control of unregulated international calls where the percentage dropped from 65 per cent to below 10 per cent of the overall calls.

“We were also able to monitor the revenue generated by communication networks through their mobile transaction. This information was also shared to tax and finance regulatory authorities such as TRA and BoT,” he added.

TCRA launched the TTMS at the end of February 2014 and has been installed and operated by SGC/GVG of Switzerland under a Build Operate Transfer Agreement until September, 2018.

From today after the official handover from the president, the system will now be fully operated by TCRA.

It is aimed at monitoring the quality of the service provided by mobile telecom companies in Tanzania as well as controlling tax revenues.