Orange Liberia says it has noted a press release issued by the Liberian Telecommunications Authority (LTA) on October 8, 2020 in which the LTA stated, among other things, that the surcharges (additional costs) currently being implemented by mobile network operators (MNOs) are “illegal and arbitrary.”
Orange Liberia says it wishes to recall that it is the LTA which promulgated LTA ORDER: 0016-02-25-19 (LTA ORDER) on February 25, 2019. The surcharges (“additional costs”) were challenged by Orange Liberia through the Civil Law Court by the filing of a Petition for Judicial Review; and by operation of Section 81, Subsection 3 of the 2007 Telecommunications Act and an Order of the Civil Law Court, the effectiveness of the LTA ORDER was suspending pending a final determination of the case by the Liberian courts. That final determination was made by the Supreme Court on September 3, 2020. “It should be noted that it is Sections 4.1., 4.2, and 4.3 of the LTA ORDER, not the MNOs, which imposed the surcharges (additional costs). These sections of the LTA ORDER specifically mandate MNO’s to impose surcharges on all on-net calls in the amount of $0.008 and to impose surcharges on each MB of data at a rate of $0.00065,” Orange Liberia noted in a press release.
According to the release, “Orange Liberia assumed that the surcharges were tax, which should be imposed by the Legislature only; but the Supreme Court ruled that the surcharges are not tax, but instead ‘additional costs’; which the LTA, pursuant to the 2007 Telecommunications Act has the authority to impose. After the Final Judgment of the Supreme Court, Orange Liberia engaged the LTA to implement the LTA ORDER by placing the surcharges (“additional costs”) on top of its own costs to its customers, collect it and remit it to the LTA.”
However, the release noted, “Instead of the LTA agreeing to meeting
on how to roll out this scheme of the LTA ORDER, the LTA sent Orange Liberia
invoices in the amount of approximately US$16.5 million for the period, March 2020 through August 2020, to be paid by October 21, 2020 or Orange Liberia’s
license will be suspended and Orange Liberia will be taken to court.
“As a law-abiding entity, Orange Liberia moved to comply with the LTA ORDER by
calculating the surcharges (“additional costs”) and placing it on top of its own costs, to be paid by its customers, collected by Orange Liberia and remitted to the LTA. Shortly after Orange Liberia announced the roll out of its plan to implement the LTA ORDER, the LTA accused Orange Liberia of price-fixing, profiteering, collusion, antitrust conspiracy and political motive for implementing the LTA ORDER and directed that all MNOs should cease and desist from implementing the LTA ORDER in the manner and way that the MNOs were implementing it.
“Orange Liberia has complied with this second order. Orange Liberia has paid all 5% regulatory fees, annual license fees, numbering and spectrum fees, $0.14/min and $0.05/min on international incoming and outgoing calls, Goods and Services Tax and continues to comply with its obligations under Liberian law. Notwithstanding this, LTA wants Orange Liberia to pay surcharges (“additional costs”), which Orange Liberia never collected from its customers and which Orange Liberia could not collect during the pendency of the Petition for Judicial Review law suit, because the law is that the effectiveness of LTA ORDER was suspended while that matter was in court. By LTA demanding now that Orange
Liberia should pay the surcharges (“additional costs”) in the amount of US$19.3
million, which was never collected by Orange Liberia from its customers, the LTA is
effectively ordering Orange Liberia into bankruptcy; which is unacceptable to
Orange Liberia.”
According to the GSM giant, “Orange Liberia is ready and prepared to meet with the LTA to amicably resolve this matter in a mutually beneficial way; but the LTA’s demand that the ‘surcharges’ (additional costs) should be paid by Orange Liberia from its revenues/assets, not by Orange Liberia’s customers, is tantamount to running Orange Liberia into bankruptcy, as its revenue cannot under any circumstance afford such huge amount. Orange Liberia is ready to open its records in substantiation of the fact that a payment of US$19.3 million will bankrupt the company; if surcharges (additional costs) were to be paid from Orange Liberia’s own revenue, Orange Liberia will not be a profitable enterprise in Liberia because it does not generate that amount of revenue from its own costs. It is just not a sustainable proposition!”