Topstar Communications Company Limited has confirmed that they will maintain the current prices for both hardware and TV bouquets, which has seen their main competitor DSTV hike prices by an average of 13%.
Topstar Public Relations Officer Kunda Chisunga said the company is focused on providing customers with the best for less and will continue to remain the most affordable on the market in terms of their decoders and bouquet prices.
In an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Chisunga said more local content will be coming through as it recently added three local TV stations to its platform. He said the company’s main goal remains the same, which is to have all the local TV stations on its platform.
Meanwhile DSTV has increased prices for all its packages effective 1 April 2021 and efforts to get a comment on why they have adjusted their prices upwards proved futile by press time. The notice of the impending increment has been widely circulated with the high end bouquet increased by an average of 13%.
Calls have heightened for a change of leadership and top management at the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission – CCPC for their reactive and slow pace of investigations to inform the nation on whether the current sharp price hikes in Zambia are justified.
CCPC has for instance been investigating the cement industry for over two years with no tangible report on what their findings are. Cement prices have now doubled within the same period, but consumers have not been availed a report to confirm if the increament is justified.
President Edgar Lungu recently called on CCPC to hasten their pace investigations and make public their reports to either confirm or dispel suspicions of unriddled business practices by some company’s. Some items which have limited link to the US dollar have also been hiked even way above the devaluation rate, raising suspicion of profiteering.
