MTN Uganda, announced on Thursday that they would be joining the rest of the country in the fight against the spread of COVID-19 by easing charges on select Mobile money transactions and data bundles.
Mobile money transfers below UGX 30,000 will not be taxed for a period of 30 days. This is in a bid to combat the spread of the virus by limiting physical cash exchange between citizens.
This announcement was made by the MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer, Wim Vanhelleputte on 18th March 2020.
“We propose to implement jointly with the commercial Banks the following emergency tariffs from midnight Thursday 20th March 2020 and remain in place for a period of thirty days; there will be no charge for Peer to Peer (P2P) on net transactions below UGX 30,000”. Vanhellaputte said
“There will be no charge for the wallet to bank (W2B) or bank to wallet (B2W) transactions. This is dependent on partnerships with commercial banks to ensure transactions are zero rated on both the subscriber wallet and bank account”, Vanhellaputte added.
In addition, there will be no charges for all MoMo pay transactions for customers and merchants.
A home bundle internet package has also been introduced to ease working from home using the internet. All customers have to do is dial *150*10# to get 1 GB at just UGX 2000 using MoMo. This bundle is valid between 9am and 5 pm.
“We will continue to take whatever coordinated action necessary to support and adopt further precautionary approaches and generation of insights to support national efforts. Starting this afternoon via our SMS channels, we shall relay messages from the Ministry of Health on how to prevent the spread of coronavirus but also, symptoms to look out for,” Mr. Vanhelleputte remarked.
To further help in the fight against the pandemic, MTN has set aside UGX 500 million which will be invested in efforts against the spread of the virus that has claimed the lives of 9,020 people across 157 countries and territories, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources.
