Safaricom's plan for its customers visiting Rwanda from this October to make local calls at KES 10 a minute have hit a snag. The Rwandan government has imposed a 30% tax on cross-border call charges in what appears to be backtracking on a promise made to scrap levies on roaming subscribers in the region.

“This new developments make it impossible for operators in Kenya and Rwanda to go ahead with the planned downward revision in tariffs. We will therefore revert to the previous tariffs even as we push on with efforts to ensure that we have affordable calling rates for the region”, Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer, Bob Collymore said yesterday.

This move has taken the East African Community (EAC) a step back from an initiative by the five country member state to slash cross-border call rates in the region by 2015.

Read about the initiative here.

“We remain committed to the effective implementation of the One Network Area initiative by the East African Community Heads of State, which envisages the reduction of International and Roaming tariffs reduced to lower costs of doing business and deepen social integration in the entire region,” Collymore said.

The move by Rwanda to renege on this agreement is said to have arisen from fears that a firm the government had contracted to monitor all international incoming calls would lose business if the levies are scrapped.

Kenya is strongly opposed to such levies, arguing that they neither benefit the governments nor the citizen, but the few individuals who own such companies and that they stifle business growth and regional integration.

At the moment, Kenya is the only East Africa nation that does not levy taxes on cross-border calls. The country has been pushing for a common termination tariff to be introduced.