From Telegeography:

Kenya’s mobile market contributed over 5% of the country’s GDP in 2006, according to figures released by Celtel, the second largest of the two local cellular operators. This was equivalent to KES111 billion (USD1.65 billion), Celtel says. The operator is calling for the government to lower excise duty on airtime in order to encourage greater take-up among low-income users. Subscribers currently pay 26% tax on each call, with value added tax at 16% and the airtime excise charge at 10%. Celtel’s CEO David Murray wants to see the excise duty lowered to 5%, according to a report from CapitalFM in Nairobi; he says: ‘At 26%, the levy is among the highest in the world, locking out millions of low-income earners, especially in the rural areas and the marginalised areas.’

I just returned from the Emerging Markets Private Equity conference in London, where VC and private equity fund managers and investors from around the world gathered. Lots of talk about returns in emerging markets, which are outpacing those in the U.S.–by a long shot. The other big news, at least for people investing in Africa, was the recent announcement of a $5 million prize for “good governance” instituted by Mo Ibrahim, the founder of Celtel. The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is touted as the largest monetary prize in the world.

Celtel is the sub-Saharan African cellphone company that was bought by Kuwait’s MTC in May 2005 for $3.4 billion. That made good money for the investors, some getting spectacular multiples in return–and within Celtel created nearly 100 milionaires, many of them African. Dr. Mo, as Ibrahim is fondly known (or “just Mo” as he prefers to be known), is using some of his proceeds to encourage good governance in Africa.

The prize will go to elected leaders who eschew corruption, according to the Ibrahim Index, as designed by Prof. Robert Rothberg at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The winner, upon leaving office, will receive $500,000 a year for 10 years, and $200,000 a year thereafter as long as he or she lives. The Ibrahim Foundation calculates that the prize will more likely be worth in the range of $8 million, assuming leaders live 20 years after leaving office.