MTN Ghana, a unit of Africa’s largest mobile operator, the MTN Group, has indicated it could spend an extra amount of $3 million (GH¢6 million) on local operations.

The telecoms giant with 50.4 percent market share in Ghana said the additional spending was due to the current power crisis in Ghana, reports the Daily Graphic March 18, 2012 citing the unit’s CEO Michael Ikpoki.

Mr Ikpoki, in a media interraction event in Accra, said the company was already contending with high operational costs stemming from multiple taxes, permits, high utility tariffs, as well as volatile exchange rates, which translated into exchange rate losses.

MTN Group authorized an amount of $149 million as 2012 capital expenditure for the Ghana unit but it spent almost $120 million at the end of 2012, according to its financial report released last week.

MTN Ghana is reported to have paid around $200 million in taxes and levies to the government.