Mobile Data Is 14% Cheaper After Minister’s Directive – Afro-Barometer Analyst Alfred Appiah

Mobile data in Ghana is indeed cheaper following the Communications Minister’s directive in July 2025, Afrobarometer data analyst Alfred Appiah has confirmed.

In a detailed Facebook post, Appiah said he used the Way-back Machine to compare MTN’s published data prices before and after the directive. His conclusion: the cut is real.

On every MTN bundle, you now get about 14% more data for the same money,” he wrote. He attributed most of the reduction to the minister’s directive, with additional relief from VAT changes in January 2026.

The minister said data is 10 to 15% cheaper, and MTN’s prices back him up. Credit where it is due, he added.

However, Appiah says the directive mostly reversed previous price hikes rather than creating new lows.

According to him, MTN raised data prices twice in 2023, including a 15% hike in November 2023. The July 2025 directive essentially cancelled that second increase, returning small bundles to their mid-2023 prices.

That, he argues, still leaves them 16% more expensive per gigabyte than they were in January 2023.

There is also inequality in the recovery, while small bundles remain above early-2023 levels, the premium 399-cedi bundle is fully back to its January 2023 level of 214GB and that people who can spend 399 cedis at once got all the way back, people buying 1, 2 or 5 cedi bundles did not, he noted.

Appiah is now urging policymakers to target the bundles most Ghanaians actually buy the 1, 2, 5 and 10-cedi packages saying that is where a further cut would make the biggest difference to daily life.

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