Story by Nathaniel Nartey
Facebook: Nathaniel Nartey
Twitter: @Annertey¬_Nartey
The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has expressed surprise at the introduction of E-Levy in the 2022 Budget. Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta said government’s decision to place a levy on all electronic transactions to widen the tax net and bring in the informal sector was preceded by considerable deliberations with stakeholders.
This has been disputed by the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications. The Chamber’s CEO Ken Ashigbe told Nathaniel Nartey that there were no engagement between government and the Chamber on the E-Levy before its introduction.
“Its come as a surprise. We did not have an inclination that this was going to happen because there was no engagement with industry before this was done…..the most important ……. we don’t go the route of Uganda where when these taxes were imposed, revenue rather went down”.
Mr. Ashigbe admitted that the E-Levy could lead to low patronage of mobile money transactions and called for further deliberations on the matter.
“We need in our deliberations do this in such a way that it does not become inimical to governments digitalisation policy nor the financial inclusion agenda…..when the price of any product goes up demad is likely to go down and so that potential (of people losing interest in mobile money transactions) exist”.