Kenya and Rwanda will next week launch uniform roaming charges for cross-border calls between the two countries, Patrick Nyirishema, Director General of the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (Rura), has said. 

Nyirishema in an interview with The New Times yesterday said the new arrangement will be announced during the Northern Corridor Heads of State Summit that starts on October 8 in Kampala, Uganda.

He assured the public that the agreement signed by the tripartite states still stands, saying that telecom firms in the three countries were not yet ‘technically ready’.

The tripartite states had set October 1, as the deadline for the implementation of the one area network initiative that also includes Uganda.

However, recent reports indicated that Kenya’s largest telecom company, Safaricom had cancelled plans to lower all costs and roaming rates between Kenya and Rwanda.

The reports claimed that Rwanda had introduced new levies on international calling and roaming tariffs, forcing the firm to suspend the newly proposed tariffs.

Safaricom had earlier wanted to have its clients visiting Rwanda make calls to Rwanda’s networks at Ksh10 (about Rwf80) per minute, a 60 per cent reduction from the initial rate of Ksh25 (about Rwf200) per minute.

However, Nyirishema dismissed the reports, explaining that the previous fee on incoming international traffic that was shared between the government and Rura had been scrapped. "The same applies to roaming charges, which has also been removed,” he added.

He noted that the inter-operator fee had remained at $4 cents (about Rwf28), which when added to the taxes amounts to $10 cents (about Rwf69), retail rate operators are supposed to charge roaming clients.

"The operator wanted to be the first to lower rates to make customers think that they can get better rates from them compared to others,” he said of the claims.

He said Rura had agreed with all the operators in the country to have their systems ready by next week so that they are consistent with the decision of the Heads of State.

The launch will exclude Uganda that is still reviewing its policy framework to allow the scrapping of roaming fees in the country.