The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today called on telecommunication companies to improve their services and reduce their rates rather than burden the people with an extra 6 percent service tax.

Its vice-president, A Balasubramaniam, said it was most unfair for these companies to pass the tax to consumers when they could easily absorb it and still make huge profits.

He was commenting on the move by the telcos to pass the 6 percent service tax on prepaid mobile services to consumers with effect from Thursday.

Last week Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said the plan to impose the tax had not been approved by the Finance Ministry.

Balasubramaniam said the tax would be a big burden to ordinary workers as they were the biggest group of prepaid mobile users.

“Workers were now struggling with high cost of living and stagnant low wages, thus an extra tax would surely be an added burden to them,” he pointed out.

He suggested that as good corporate citizens the telcos could ease the burden of this segment of society by providing cheaper calls with wider coverage.

- Bernama