By I am a landline customer of one of UK's leading communications companies. A ONE minute phone call to Uganda recently cost me £1 - 16pence (roughly Shs 3,800)! That didn't include VAT, line rental and voice mail, which were billed separately.

A £1 (Shs 3,000) international phone card (air time in Uganda parlance) which unlike Uganda's phone cards, is acceptable by all service providers, including land lines, allows 30 minutes to talk to Uganda compared to one minute! It is incomprehensible that companies using identical technology to explore/exploit godsend free air space charge prices massively and exceedingly different.

Companies may maximise profits but not at the expense of ripping off customers like my landline service provider. This monumentally outrageous avarice for money is partly blamed for the current economic meltdown of the global financial system. With advanced technology, telecommunication is increasingly cheaper and faster as users of the Internet can testify.

In 1997, the Internet cafe in my area charged a whopping £5- 50p (Shs 16,500) per hour! Today with easier Internet access, one hour costs a mere 50pence (Shs 1,500) for much faster web browsing!

Uganda's telecommunication companies-investors- similarly set obscene charges. In Uganda, unlike other countries, apart from the inconvenience of using only "air time" sold by your Sim Card supplier, Shs 3,000 is worth only eight minutes! Compare that with £1 (Shs 3,000) worth 30 minutes of airtime sold by international phone card companies.

The exorbitant charges by Uganda's phone companies are completely detached from anything recognisable as reality and fair. The opprobrium of the not criminal but morally disreputable Temangalo debacle, currently drowning other events, is caused by pompously selfish inaccurate growls that a seller can charge any price. People of such "sharp" skills with wizards' bargaining "acumen" should understand that price controls in many countries are intended to cap the amount firms [including investors] and individuals can charge customers. Price controls also protect "a fool (NSSF Management) with his money" against paying monstrous charges.

There are stringent restrictions on lawyers' fees. UK's Office of Fair Trading penalises price fixing where companies in similar industries collude on [over] charging customers same prices, limiting their choices. Companies should reinvest substantially their colossal profits to create jobs for unemployed Ugandans instead of frittering away all proceeds to their countries. Telecommunication and information communication technology companies are reportedly among those that invested $368 (Shs 644b) in Uganda in 2007. It makes more sense if profits investors repatriated were also revealed to compute the net gain/loss to Uganda.

Minister Daniel Atubo observed that any foreign investment ought to satisfy the interests of nationals. I am not advocating selling "air time" for a song. Statistics and other ratios suspiciously used by investors to price their commodities/services are deceptively misleading. Lumping slave wage earners into the same bracket of the supremely privileged class, disguises the huge gap separating the two groups.

There are places around Kampala where staff on a 14-hour non-stop, back breaking shift take home Shs 3,500 a day, after deducting one meal, transport, etc. Some of the workers who perished at the NSSF construction site last week were said to be earning Shs 3,000 per day!

Figures also mask the primitive working conditions of these POLE POLE (Paid On Labour Employed) with no safe guards against vagaries of fate like sickness or pregnancy. Compiling POLE POLE's paltry wages with that of the URA boss earning Shs 24 million monthly - over Shs 1million a day, including free chauffeured cars, free airtime, rent-free accommodation and invaluable intangible asset - the job security - to assess income per capita of Uganda women is ridiculously inaccurate! Ugandans are caught up in the excitement of owning ['receive only'] mobile phones. Many blip others to phone them back. They are not scroungers but how can anyone paid Shs 3,500 a day afford airtime of Shs 2,000?

"Offers" of "free" airtime worth Shs 4,000 for making calls totalling Shs 10,000 within a week mean nothing to OMADA (One Meal A DAy). A second meal is a "luxury" they can't afford! Such offers benefit those pontificated "wealthy", the authentic representative of endemic corruption.

Investors hugely profiteering from government's financial incentives, such as the 10-year tax break, should pass some of their savings to penurious Ugandans with "toes lost to jiggers" by slashing phone and other charges - like interest rates on [bank] loans. They must offer products and services at fair prices that boost lives of Ugandans to justify peddling over hyped claims of being "developers".

Emmanuel D. Kavuma, The author is a Ugandan living in London, UK.