Orange CEO warns Senegal: tax regime could harm investment

Stephane Richard, the chief executive officer of France Telecom-Orange, has called on the government of Senegal to improve economic rules in the country where they concern taxation of the telecommunications market, warning that placing an additional financial burden on the industry will only hamper investment. Richard and Alione Ndiaye, managing director of national PTO Sonatel, met with the Senegalese prime minister Abdoul Mbaye to discuss their concerns. According to Agence Ecofin, Mbaye explained that the recent decision to eliminate a telecoms surtax and the setting of corporate taxation at ‘a reasonable rate’, were designed as incentives to major investment. Further, Senegal’s president Macky Sall is on record as saying that that his administration is actively looking at ways to remove barriers to the deployment of internet services across the entire country.