An influential Malay daily, Berita Harian, today called on Telekom Malaysia to explain in layman terms the rationale behind its decision to increase the tariff rate for local calls next month.

In its editorial today, the daily said the people could not understand why Telekom needed to increase the tariff as the company registered a 95.6 percent increase in pre-tax profit of RM2.052 billion for the nine-month period ending Sept 10.

Telekoms after-tax profit also increased by 164.4 per cent to RM1.566 billion.

In view of this, the daily said the public do not perceive Telekoms decision to hike the price as a justifiable move.

Cynical reaction

The new tariffs — effective March 1 — entails a one-sen increase for local calls from the current rate of three sen per minute.

This means local calls (made within a 25km radius) would cost eight sen for the first two minutes and four sen for each subsequent minute. The current rate is nine sen for the first three minutes and three sen for each minute thereafter.

National, long-distance (STD) and overseas (IDD) calls will be cheaper with reductions of up to 54 per cent for STD and between seven and 67 percent for IDD calls.

Berita Harian said the public reacted cynically by saying the tariff re-balancing exercise would only benefit foreign workers.

On the other hand, the paper agreed that parents who make long-distance or international calls to their children studying abroad, will benefit from the move and cheaper overseas calls will also attract foreign investments.