Safaricom has passed on the cost of a new tax introduced by the Kenyan government to the 16 million subscribers of its M-Pesa mobile money service.

The mobile operator said that the charges for M-Pesa transactions above Ksh 101 ($1.1) will increase by 10 percent from 8 February. The fee for transactions of a lower amount will stay the same, it said.

The government has proposed a 10 percent tax on money transfers by mobile operators, banks and money transfer agencies in order to boost its finances.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore, who described the operator as being “Kenya’s largest taxpayer”, argued that the new tax is “premature” and would likely have “a negative impact on the country’s financial-deepening agenda by creating an unnecessary barrier for wananchi who are most in need of basic financial services,” according to the East African. The “wananchi” are the country’s general citizens.