The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has ordered the country’s two largest mobile network operators, TNM and Airtel Malawi, to compensate customers after finding that both companies raised service tariffs without providing the seven-day public notice required under Malawian law.
Nkoloma: operators had breached the Communications Act of 2016
In a statement, MACRA Director General Mayamiko Nkoloma said the operators had breached the Communications Act of 2016, which stipulates that any revised tariff must be published in two daily newspapers at least seven days before it takes effect.
The requirement is intended to give consumers adequate warning of price changes and time to adjust their usage or switch providers if necessary, a safeguard regulators in liberalised telecoms markets typically regard as central to maintaining fair competition and consumer trust.
Nkoloma said both TNM and Airtel had been found to have implemented tariff increases without meeting this statutory notice period, a finding that puts renewed scrutiny on pricing practices in a sector that remains dominated by the two operators, who between them account for the overwhelming majority of Malawi’s mobile subscriptions.
The companies have been given until 31 July 2026 to implement the required compensation to affected customers, with MACRA stating that the process will take place under its close supervision to ensure compliance.
The order marks one of the more assertive regulatory interventions MACRA has made against the country’s telecoms operators in recent years, and comes at a time when the regulator, under Nkoloma’s leadership, has signalled a broader ambition to reposition itself as a more proactive enforcer of consumer protections within Malawi’s digital economy, rather than a purely administrative licensing body.
Nkoloma, who recently completed a PhD examining digital health systems in Malawi, has spoken publicly of wanting MACRA to move beyond a narrow regulatory function towards one that actively shapes the country’s communications sector in the interests of both innovation and consumers.
Neither TNM nor Airtel Malawi has yet issued a public response to the compensation order.
The scale of the compensation, and the precise mechanism by which it will be delivered to affected customers — whether through automatic credits, refunds, or another method — has not been specified in MACRA’s statement.
The case underscores a broader tension familiar to telecoms regulators across the region: balancing the commercial pressures operators face from rising input costs, including fuel, currency depreciation and equipment expenses, against consumers’ right to transparent and predictable pricing.
Malawi’s mobile operators have in recent years cited exchange rate volatility and elevated inflation as recurring justifications for tariff adjustments, even as regulators have pushed back against what they characterise as insufficiently transparent implementation of those changes.
With the 31 July deadline now set, attention will turn to how promptly and comprehensively TNM and Airtel move to comply, and whether MACRA’s intervention signals a more assertive regulatory posture towards the country’s dominant telecoms operators going forward.
