Radio Miraya
2833: NATIONWIDE: Telecom Tariff Increases in South Sudan
(upbeat music) - Nationwide, we bring you latest current issues, discussions and information. (upbeat music) Nationwide on Radio Miraya. (upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Nationwide this evening. Welcome to the show. We are here to discuss issues on that affect the nation. My name is Lucy Caden and today our focus will be on the reasons behind tariff increase by telecom companies. Now on Saturday, 18. South Sudan woke up to new tariff rates for all three telecom companies operating in the country, MTN, Zayn and Jitel. According to a joint press release by the three telecom companies, there is an agreement to adjust the exchange rate for telecommunication tariffs in response to the Bank of South Sudan's official exchange rate. This is to be implemented in three phases and the first adjustment or card on Saturday. Subsequent adjustments are to be done in November and December. So over the weekend after this fast phase of the adjustments, there's been a public outcry over this action with so many people complaining that the cost of data and calls is already too high. And so to discuss more on this issue joining me now is the Director General at the National Communications Authority, Napoleon Adok, Napoleon, you are welcome. - Thank you. - And we also have Ali Monza who is the CEO of MTN South Sudan. Mr. Ali, you are welcome. - Thank you. - And with him from MTN South Sudan as well is Kenilu Jung, who is the Head of Sales and Distribution here. Welcome, Keni. - Shukran. - All right, Shukranalik. Thank you all for making time to come and discuss this issue that has caused a lot of complaints rising. Many people are asking questions and my hope is that you'll be able to answer these questions. Now, the first detail we would like to get into is why was the tariff adjustment made in the first place? And this is not the first adjustment that has been made, those one in 2022 as well. And so why, again, now was this made? I'll direct this over to Mr. Ali Monza. - Yeah, thank you so much, Lucy, and I would like to greet all the listeners that are listening to us here. I want to say a massage here for everyone. As you rightly said, Lucy, the last tariff was done in September 2022. And since then, we have not increased our tariff. We have actually in reality, the tariff was not increased. What we have adjusted as you rightly said at the beginning in your introduction is the exchange rate of the tariff. Where our tariff is configured in dollars as per the agreement with NCA and the central bank, every minute is price 0.04 dollars, which is 4 cents. The last increase was done in 2022, where the exchange rate increased to 618 SSP to the dollar. And as you know, Lucy, if you follow the exchange rate depreciation from 2022 to now, you will see that in exchange rate depreciation more than if I'm not mistaken, 500%. Today we are sitting at 3,092 as per the central bank rate as of this morning. So on the first of May, in collaboration with NCA and the central bank, we have agreed to adjust our exchange rates from 618 to 1,600 into three phases as well. So we have been operating since actually November 22 on exchange rate of 618 in Lucy. And unfortunately, our business is a capital intensive business. We ordered equipment from outside the country and some of our services are also given to us by vendor from outside of the country where we need to source dollars to pay to those vendor. And let me assure you, Lucy, we as an MTN, we are not looking for profitability. Right now, at this stage, we are only looking and to keep what we say, the light on, just to keep the network up and running. And for us to keep the network up and running, we need to adjust the exchange rate to build a bit of our cash flow that will allow us just to buy fuel, to buy grid and to pay salary. This is all what we are looking for. We have been struggling for the last two years, almost two years with an exchange rate of 618. And you know, right now in our system, the exchange rate is 2,150. And right now in the market, Lucy, if you want to go and you want to buy $100, I'm sure you'll pay more than 4,500 in the market. And that's the rate that we are all using to buy dollar, to pay for our supplier, just to keep the network up and running. If we will not have increased, the exchange rate will have been forced to shut down site, to shut down network. And let me show you again, we are not looking for profitability at the stage. The economy is in a quite challenging situation. The customer are suffering. So we have to choice in front of us as a telecom sector, shut down or do an adjustment on the exchange rate for us to remain alive. We as an MTM, we employed more than 50,000 direct and entire company. There's 50,000 people, South Sudanese, take their earning from MTM directly or indirectly. What will happen to them if we shut down? Let us answer that question. The situation is very, very challenging. We trust the ICT sector and we have a strong belief that we are gonna deliver or the central bank and the government will deliver a smooth lending. We just need to survive now. It's about survival, nothing else. All what we need to enhance our services, enhance our customer experience and also we need to expand our network. Do you know that South Sudan has the lowest mobile penetration in the world? Less than 60% of the people has synced card compared to other neighboring country where the mobile penetration exceed 100%. So there's a lot of work that we as an MTN and the other mobile network operator they still need to do and that work requires massive investment as well. So that exchange rate adjustment will help us to improve the quality of our service, will help us to increase employment as well and will help us to expand our footprint and give the service that our valued customer deserves. - All right, and just to, I will get into some of the details of what you've mentioned a bit later, but let's look at the surprise element. A lot of people are saying they were not aware that this was going to happen. This was a surprise compared to when it took place in 2022 where there was prior communication and there was enough time for people to internalize the fact that there was going to be in this tariff adjustment. What do you have to say for that? Did you communicate earlier? What happened? - We have not communicated earlier for the sake of transparency and honesty. I agree, we have not communicated earlier, we communicated I think a few hours before the change, but yes, there is a room for improvement in that space and we are committed to improve and the reality is exactly what you mentioned at the beginning, we also communicated 18 November, 18 December in the letter that we have published on the social media. So we have learned from our mistake and we have come and we gave I think two one month and two months notice now in our communication for the second and the third exchange rate increase. - All right. Now coming to you NCA, Napoleon Adok, still speaking on public concerns, there are a number of concerns that NCA is allowing the telecom companies to do whatever they want as far as this increase in tariffs and for the public. This is more money, they're going to spend more money to make calls and to be able to access data. What is your comment on this? - Thank you, Lucy and good evening listeners. This is entirely not true and CA is not allowing the mobile operators to do whatever they want and I can prove that if we revisit the history of tariff adjustment. In principle, the National Communication Authority has not increased the tariff because the tariff has established under the National Communication Act is set in US dollar, which is four cents per minute and which is charged per second. Now it is the value of four cents that is converted into SSP and that is affected by inflation. Every time the SSP differentiates, of course, like every other community that value itself keep going up. Certainly in the pocket of subscribers, it is an increase. This exercise, we have been holding it back as far back as 2016 on the understanding that we don't want the operators to go and be introducing a new price rate every time that the dollar gain value or every time the SSP differentiate. So in the beginning 2016, 2017, we introduced restriction so that we also save our people from daily changes and that's why we told the operators to have a specific exchange rate for the tariff not to be paid toward the central bank or the parallel market, which are both extremely very high and also volatile. And that's why we introduced it at the beginning. There were two aspects to that. There was an understanding that for them to access dollar, the central bank would allocate them for X so that we stop them from exploiting the public. So we did that 2016, 2017, up to 2019. In 2020, when our economy suffered, so the central bank ceased to supply US dollar to the telecom company at that rate. And it was urged that the central bank is asking everybody to go to free market or go to commercial bank to get the exchange. Which disadvantage, of course, whoever was using the telecom tariff. Our reason behind it is that even though the tariff exchange, I mean the forex exchange or monetary regulation is a domain of commercial central bank, we again wanted for the interest of our subscribers to sustain that, you know, imagine Lucy, you wake up the following day because the dollars move from 2000 to 3000, then your tariff change. Then the next day, how would we have exercised that? It would have been massive for our subscribers. So it is out of that effort that we manage to contain this tariff exchange. And I can give you the history behind here with me. - Yes, please. - You can see that just just only from August to October, from August 2022 to October, to August 2024. So the tariff exchange rate which we restricted was then 300, equivalent of 300 SSP to the dollar. While the central bank was 652, that was in August 2022. By September 2022, the tariff exchange rate was 450 while the central bank was 620. So you can see that the same thing, it keep going on in October 2022. The tariff rates was 563 while the bank rate, I mean, the central bank exchange rate was 66515 going on forward. So you can see we have always tried to restrict the telecom companies. The reason is that we don't want the public to be affected because you see every month, if you go inside a month, daily, we are all seeing that. Now this exercise became unsustainable for us as a regulator of telecom. We cannot attempt to manage economic issues. So we decided now to talk to the central bank, to take over, to guide us as the body mandated by law to guide the economic issue in the country. So we met with the central bank and said, this is difficult for us. Otherwise we are creating also a parallel market that is outside the reality of economy. So this negotiation took a while and it involved the board of directors of NCA and we also brought on board the policymakers. What was the pressure behind? The pressure was exactly what Ali said. The MNOs were putting requests to shut down, operate rural sites which we endeavor so hard to connect the country. And that would have affected really the people at the remotest part of our country that would have also adorned consequences, especially in areas affected by flooding and insecurity. So on our part we are endeavoring to make sure that the services must remain alive so that people can be, you may not afford it, but at least you will be able to reach your grandmother in the village, at least to receive a phone call, or at least you will be able to have other mode of communication like SMS or sending people. There should be something to keep it up so that we can see how situational it be. That is one issue. The other one is that the tariff, even if we set it at four cent per minute, it's basically a ceiling where we are telling the operators that don't charge above this number, but below they can now compete in the market to sell the products in order to win and sustain operators because even them, they need business. If you charge exurbability in a very expensive way, the people will not be able to pay and customers will switch off. So it is the same way they will lose. They will have now to come and play below what we have given out. So the reason agreement is that the central bank take over and the central bank, of course, don't want to have a parallel market. They want everybody to exchange by central bank. And it is in the current financial resolution that is in the bank, that in the parliament state that all transaction will have to be valued at the central bank rate. So the idea now is how do we bridge the gap? Because if you see the current exchange rate was at 1,355 and now the central bank has already reached 3,000. So you can see there's a gap of 100%. So the idea is how do we spread out to reach the central bank? You can't go overnight. And that's why we ask them, please try to face it out so that it is to smooth into a people pocket. Because otherwise it is right, I feel outrageous. If you wake up one day, what you had for, let's say, you had 10,000 pound in your phone, which you are feeling comfortable. You do a lot of thing. And then the next day it is gone. You will, of course, be shocked. I received a lot of coal from credible subscribers protesting this idea. So on our side, really, we are faced with a challenge. We are trying to do our best. And I'm still engaging with the MNOs, with the network operators, to try to reduce even the cost of internet at least so that, you know, to keep the young people online, because otherwise we are disadvantaging them. And that would be really, it will be counterproductive to our effort of getting people online to have access to information. And I have not been a very popular person over the weekend, Lucy. But I don't mind. I don't mind because I am glad they are able to get online to insult me. But at least I really want them to get online at an affordable cost. And this is, I take it as a prize of being a public service. You know, people will speak up and they will tell all sort of thing, I don't get angry at it, because it is also part of accountability. And I feel proud that people are able to speak up. I wish they can do the same for all the other services in the country. So that is not only Napoleon. Thank you. - Thank you very much for that detailed explanation. And you have really tried to explain it in detail, and I hope that the public will be able to understand this. I want to address something that was on the presser that was released. According to that joint press release, there's a statement that said there are considerations on the impact for the consumers. And one of them, Napoleon has mentioned, is that you're still keeping lower than the actual exchange rate in the market. And then you have this four cent per minute ceiling. - Yeah. - Can I ask, where is MTN in terms of the competition? Are you at the ceiling below the ceiling? Where are you? - If you check the effective rate per minute in SSP, we are below the ceiling. If you will check now, you will dial star 100 hash and you try to buy data bundles. When you buy a 1GB, on a price of an X will give you 1.5GB. It's a 50% bonus. And let me promise here, from Europe platform, from this show. Let the customer be patient with us. To give MTN a few days, they will see a major change in Yellow Sunday, starting from this Sunday, the popular Yellow Sunday. I'm promising from this show Lucy. - Yeah. - They will see a major change in Yellow Sunday from this Sunday. They will see many key product, affordable product in the next one to two weeks coming. - So as Honorable Dji mentioned, the target is a ceiling. - I just want to interrupt. I wouldn't want to sit here and entertain one operator promoting themselves. - That is exactly right. - As a regulator, I wouldn't allow that. It means whatever Ali is saying is actually what we have discussed, that all of them must give back to subscribers. So, and all of them must make their product visible. And so we want to see how they're going to play. So that also others don't undercut the other guys. - Thank you very much. - So I just want to, I'm not disputing Ali offer, but I really wanted to state that I am supposed to police this gentleman. The idea of them issuing joint statement, it was not that they're doing joint statement in pricing. The joint statement is on the policy level, but actually each one of them has a marketing strategy. And what he's saying is the MTN, the Zanes are doing the same, digital are doing the same as well. And we are not doing that. We are also going to go down now to discuss the issue of internet, because the internet is the main thing that young people are, and this is my key concern, because a lot of young people actually don't make phone calls. They actually send messages to themselves. And if they don't have connectivity, they are basically cut off. - All right, thank you very much. Now I do have some specific MTN questions that I'll be asking you, Monza, as well as specific NCA questions that I'll be asking you. Thank you for clarifying on this tariff adjustments. And later we'll be opening the lines. If you already have questions and you're tuning in, you can start sending a text message on 0 9 1 2 1 7 7 1 4 1. Also note these numbers 0 9 1 2 0 6 7 8 7 9 0 9 1 2 0 6 7 9 2 9 0 9 1 2 0 6 8 1 0 1, as the numbers you'll be able to call and ask or make comments on this recent change in the telecommunication services. We're going for a short break, and once we are back, we shall continue. This is nationwide. (upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Nationwide, we bring you latest current issues, discussions and information. (upbeat music) Nationwide on Radio Miraya. Welcome back. This is Nationwide. My name is Lucy Kidan. And today our main focus is the recent tariff increase. The public knows it as tariff increase, but it has been explained as the exchange rate adjustment of the tariff, because in the National Communications Authority Act, it is currently set in the USD. And every time there is fluctuation in the market, then that means that there is a need to adapt and come and be at the park with the Bank of South Sudan rate. And so that has been explained and it is clear. We will have opportunity for you to ask questions, but before we do that, coming to you, MTN, Mr. Monza, they have been customer complaints on poor services, poor customer care, as well as poor network. And when such a change happens, these complaints are magnified, because then the question is why increase the amount and I'm speaking for mostly people who don't earn the US dollars in South Sudan. They earn south Sudanese pounds, and such an increase is a very key change in their lifestyle. So what can you say? Are there any plans to make improvements? You just cited that one of the reasons you need to adjust this rate is to improve services and expand the network. What are the plans in place? And as you're speaking, you might as well speak for the general telecommunications industry. Well, absolutely. I mean, I think like Zayn in digital, I mean, the main purpose for this increase is to invest back into the network and to enhance the quality of service and the customer experience. I completely understand the quality of service issues that the customer are complaining about and the responsiveness of customer care is extremely critical, especially at the call center and the service center. Yes. We are committed, actually, as MTN and I'm sure the other mobile network operator the same and we communicated this to NCA, that one of the key reasons, as I mentioned, at the beginning to optimize or to increase the exchange rate of the tariff is to invest back on the network. As I mentioned, briefly, at the beginning, there's a lot of work required. So what are these things? What is the work? One of them has started. I don't want to talk about MTN specific, that's the issue. So, and otherwise-- You can highlight. Yeah, I mean, one of the key issue for us as a network operator is the availability of the network. You know, we have sites. We have towers nationwide. As an MTN, for us to make sure that the tower is always on, we need to invest on an energy. We need to invest on a battery, lithium ion battery. We need to invest on a generator. Some of the sites that Lucy will put two, three, generator, or some of the site are key hub, or they are main, they are the center. So, first action that we are taking as a mobile network operator, specifically as well as MTN, is investing on a green energy as well, because we need to eliminate the carbon emission from our site. So we started that project. It's a massive project and very expensive projects, by the way, we don't want to go into numbers. The second one, Lucy, is running out LTE everywhere. The LTE or the 4G population in South Sudan is one of the lowest. Below 60% of the population are covered under LTE, below 60% actually. So we have a lot of work to do on the 4G coverage and we need to expand the 4G. All the 2G sites should have 4G by default, like many other countries. Third one is digitalization. Bringing the digitalization to the country, the latest technology, the like of chatbot, for example, for the customer to automatically serve themself through a chatbot, we need to also optimize our network operation center to detect default before the customer even feel that there's a fault. This is also play a big role in the quality of service, Lucy. So there's a lot of work that we need to do as a mobile network operator to invest that back into the ecosystem. - All right, thank you very much. Now, we have, Kenya, the jungle hasn't said anything yet. And for Kenya, my question to you is, as a sales and distribution officer person in MTN South Sudan, you interact with your consumers a lot. What are they saying and what are they asking for? - Okay, thank you, thank you very much for this. Very good time. Actually, I wanted to speak in Arabic, so that-- - Please go ahead. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - Okay. - Kala Shukran, thank you for that. That actually cues us now to hear from our callers. And remember, you can call in on these numbers, 0-9-1-2-0-6-7-8-7-9, 0-9-1-2-0-6-7-9-2-9, and 0-9-1-2-0-6-8-1-0-1. So you are welcome to call in right now and we'll be able to hear you. Let's take our first caller. Radio Mira, hello. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) - Yes, I go from wow, what is your question and who are you directing it to? - Yes, because of time I will ask only two questions. - Go ahead. - And there will be in position to answer it all. My first question to all the telecommunication companies is that what is the reason, the main reason of increasing the tariffs now, because the dollar rate is coming down. It is not long after that, 20. And you are still going up, you are increasing the tariffs without even informing the customers. What is the reason? Both I had two minutes ago that MTN wanted to, you know, to accent its services, to employ the staff, more staff and one other thing. They want to make sure that they have enough money to to employ their staff and also to, you know, to increase the salary of their staff. - I give your question please. - It is the first question, that second question is, what is the authority, the communication authority doing, that is on the side of the government? What do they have to say in regards to what has been done by the telecommunication companies? And do they also agree that the citizens will continue to suffer? Those people will go to seven, eight, nine months without salary. And yet, telecommunication companies have also decided to root the citizens in their own rule. - Yes, thank you. - And the aspect also keep quiet. What is the reaction of the government towards the decision taken by the telecommunication companies to increase the tariffs? - Thank you, Agile, thank you. Yes, that is Agile from WOW. We'll take another cooler. Radio Mira, hello. - Hello. - How are you? - Good evening, how are you? - Good evening, I'm fine, thank you, how are you? - Yeah, fine, thank you. My greetings to the guests in the studio also. - Yes, your name? - This bald girl from Macabre. - Yes, bald, go ahead. - Yeah, thank you for that topic. You know, by the way, Lucy, this issue of increasing this money in all telecommunication. So this is not something new, okay? But the problem is, you know, by then the time, when they were starting increasing by some month back, so it seemed they are going together with the dollar, the rate of the dollar, okay? But I really see now the dollar is still back behind, not even too much, okay? And it's still that they have increased. You know, let me tell you this before they have said that if they increase the bundle of internet, so it will be very easy for everyone to access for internet. From where I am now in October, we don't have access of internet, okay? Like data is not working, it is 2GBs. Totally, it's not working. So we are communicating through data code, okay? On which, so most part of social data now, well, even let me say, more population is also done so they are not using internet, okay? - Which is your question? - Okay, my question, okay, like they have said before, are they going back to the previous prescription where they were not increasing, because another one of them, because I said before to the MTN guide that, so they should go back together. Are they going to back together or it will be only MTN? - All right, thank you very much. Okay, let's take one last, then you can answer the questions. (speaks in foreign language) - Yes, but they've been in Louisiana. - Yes. (speaks in foreign language) - Yes, Andrea, go ahead. - I have the questions to tell the company in this video. - Mm-hmm. - It is seeming like they are hiding on Dola in this country and I want to know if they are going to change the region of this country, if they want to introduce Dola as the second money of this country, (speaks in foreign language) then we will use Dola as our means money in this country. - Okay. - Yes. - Thank you very much. - I want to know from them. - Thank you very much. Right, these are the questions from Agil, from Wao, Bol, you know, Cobo, and Andrea Camilo as well. Who is in Pagao area? Go ahead and answer these questions. - I believe, DJ, you can start and then Monza, you come in after. - Thank you. Yeah, for the question of Agil is where he was asking, what is the authority doing? Of course, the authority as the regulating body of all the telecommunications services has been actually containing this situation for the last seven years. As one of the speakers said, this is not the first time of the target adjustment. What has been going on is that the tariff you have been experiencing until now is actually a role of the authority keeping down the exchange rate in order not to affect you and in order for you to enjoy. Now that authority is unable to keep down the rate as it was initially said, the exchange rate responsibilities transferred to the central bank. And I would have wished that somebody from the central bank to be here to explain to us how do they regulate this exchange rate of the dollar. But of course, that is connected to the question of Andrea Camillo, that do we want to use the dollar as the currency? No, of course, we have our legal tender, which is the sauce-udan pound. But the reason we are also measuring communication in US dollar is because there is a global standard so that when somebody is calling from America, he knows exactly how you are going to pay them back or when we make a call to Europe or to any other part of the country. So telecommunication in its entirety is an imported product because satellite is not paid in SSP, it is paid in US dollar. And that is become in the category of imported goods. So the fuel which is run generator is also imported in US dollar. All the other services that are sustaining the telecommunication at the end of the day are converted into US dollar. So that goes into the rhymes of economy, which I don't want to go into. I want to remain within the technology itself. But in a sense that we are doing something, we are engaging the operators, they don't wake up and change. They would of course love to wake up every day and change the tariff as they wish. But we are restricting them so that we can also make the services affordable to our people. This concern has come to our attention and that's why we are engaging them to say the tariff we set, the four cents is a ceiling. It's not exactly the final one at the end. So but we are telling them don't go viewing four cents in a coal and even so, we are also introducing that when you make a coal, if you have not used the minute, so all that four cents is divided again by 60 seconds. So it's charged per a second in the local coal. The major thing where you come in, of course, is that if you see in August this year, the rate for paying per minute is 54 pound. And you can see 54 pound is divided by 60 and you can actually be precise on how much you are using on the per second. And if you speak let's say for 20 seconds, I don't expect the MTN to charge you around figure of one minute. So these are some of the effort we are doing, Andrea and Agao and Bolina Cobo. Part of the reason you don't have internet or your network has not been upgraded in a Cobo is because the technology for doing that has not been brought in because you have to pay for it and import it and put it there. I believe now you are reaching us from a satellite service somewhere within a Cobo. And you can see that satellite probably is paid in US dollar. So these are the thing that all these are connected. Thank you. - All right, thank you, Napoleon. Coming out to you, a number of questions were answered. There's this one particular one from Agao who was also asking, no, Agao, this is both from Agao, talking about internet access and how there's only 2G where he lives. And citing that one of the reasons you are increasing the tariff is to expand access. So what is happening? Then there's one question I'd like to add to you. Here I have a breakdown of a difference between Uganda and South Sudan charges. And looking at the internet, cost of internet in Uganda, I'll just summarize it. It's more expensive in South Sudan if you break it down to the detail of number of MBs, cost of the, and in the sense in the US dollar. So the question here is, why does the company put a lot of operations where there are only few mobile phones and then levy the running costs on other customers? So that is a question that goes to you, Mr. Monza. - No, thank you. Just to answer both questions from Agao Bo, about he has only 2G, I think, honorable 2G. 2G has highlighted this point. We don't have 4G, even 3G everywhere in the country. And one of the reason why we increase the exchange rate to the level that we have increased on the 18th of October, this way to invest back this money in growing our what we call broadband internet, to bring the 4G and the 3G everywhere you go into country, not only MTN, digital and then also they will do the same. So the tariff increase, also to highlight what Agao has asked, what's the reason of increasing the tariff, and I think honorable 2G has touched on it. Three, four things, to keep the network up and running. So even the, so the same problem that Bo is facing in Agao Bo, it will not be repeated everywhere. We need to keep buying fuel. The fuel is a dollars. We need to maintain the network. Maintenance 80% is in dollars. We need also to expand the network to support Bo with 4G high speed internet. This is also we pay in dollars. So 80% of our expenses as a telecom operators are in dollars. And again, we completely understand the affordability problem. And we feed with the customer. And we care about our customer. As all of us, they in digital and MTN. And as we mentioned at the beginning, all of us we have a plan. And as honorable as you said, that is a ceiling. We are not gonna, we are gonna provide many products, all of us, to bring the tariff down. And this is on Bo and Agao question. On your question, comparing the 1GB price south Sudan versus 1GB price in Uganda or Rwanda and Kenya, all loosey come to the cost of production at the end of the day. When you produce one megabyte, what's your cost? Trust me, right now what we charge is below the cost of production in South Sudan. Our exchange rate, right now if we need to pay our vendor, we buy dollar on the 4500 even more, even more. Which is double than the exchange rate that we have in the system. So, you are earning income on an X, but you are paying out on 2X. There is no business can survive this. And this is for sure will impact the cost of production of the minutes and the cost of the production per megabytes. - All right, when you say cost of production, and if you can answer this in just 30 seconds, what is that specific thing that is affecting the cost of production? Just highlight it. - Mainly is the exchange rate. Mainly is the exchange rate. - But when we speak on exchange rate, here we are citing USD in the actual cost per cent in US dollar, it's lower than South Sudan. - So, this one litre of fuel cost in Uganda is almost half the one litre of fuel cost. Go to up a mile and buy one litre of fuel, how much you pay. - Okay, so we have fuel in the other? The other part, the cost of services to deploy a site in South Sudan, and we can go into number, we don't have time. I was in Uganda. - So we don't have that, yeah. - Is almost double in some of the region up country. Then if I want to put a site in Arua or Gulu, or Entebi even or Kampala, will almost cost me half than putting the same site in Malakal. - Okay, thank you, Mr. Monda. Kenny, I'm gonna request you to just explain, especially the question around why this was done in Arabic, why the need for the tariff adjustments in just about a minute if you can do that. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Now, one last, these are now final, as we conclude the discussion, to NCA, and Mr. Monda, don't shoot the messenger. There's a question around whether you're able to do what you did between 2016 and 2020, when you were able to put regulations to just stick it to one specific cost. Is that still possible? - Well, it is possible regulations are instrument of governance, and therefore, as a government, when we issue regulation, they're enforced across by other sectors. And what has eroded our regulation is that when we issue restriction, like you have seen at the beginning of the tariff issues, we expected our counterpart in the central bank to honor. And of course, they had also their own issues where the forks was not available. So that made it very difficult to contain the operators. And I remember, I said in this studio, that I have a very difficult job, Lucy, of ensuring availability of services, and also affordability. Now, making those two to rhyme together has a price. One thing, we are endeavoring to make it affordable. Of course, we have seen that as the price rise of affordability is slipping down the slope. At the end, if we insist to try to sustain affordability, then availability is also slipping down. And that's what you had from the operators that they were trying to shrink their operation to big cities so that people in the rural area, like places isolated as far as Buma, as Pochala, as Raja, as a Cobo, you know, if those places go off the grid, and we in Juba enjoy the chief call, we would have failed our citizen. And I believe there are more people outside Juba that need services. And I know it is a challenge, they may not even be able to afford a call. But it is important that for one security reason, for humanitarian reason, now we know our country is suffering from flood. Have I speak here? There are people in May and it's slipping literally on the road with no contact. And they have relative years endeavoring every day to find out how are you guys doing. And the same thing, we've seen in the eastern room back, we have seen a whale now, people are in the street. So there is really a lot that we have to do as government. So as much as we push regulation, there is also an option of flexibility to address so that we sustain. In other countries, this kind of discussion are no longer, they don't exist, because state introduced what is called state control network, a national operator, which we still don't have. It has been proposed several times, so that it could have subsidized some of these things. Right now we are depending on private sector. And these are the challenges of private sector. Thank you. - Thank you, Napoleon. Mr. Monza, I'm going to give you about 15 seconds to conclude and share your last remarks. - No, thank you so much, Lucie, for having us, truly appreciate it. And thank you for honorable DG also for attending with us. At the end, we as a telecom sector, as I mentioned, who are not looking for profitability. It's a survival mode. We are just looking to survive, to keep the network up and running, all of us, digital, Zane and MTN, to service our customers. That's all, thank you, Lucie. - Thank you very much. And this brings us to the end of the discussion today. Hopefully we'll have another time to revisit the topic.