{"id":985622,"date":"2022-02-11T02:51:03","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T02:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/11\/coalition-of-concerned-ghanaians-presents-petition-to-parliament\/"},"modified":"2022-02-11T02:51:03","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T02:51:03","slug":"coalition-of-concerned-ghanaians-presents-petition-to-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/11\/coalition-of-concerned-ghanaians-presents-petition-to-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Coalition of Concerned Ghanaians presents petition to Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Accra, Feb. 10, GNA \u2013 Members of the Coalition of Concerned Ghanaians on Thursday presented a petition to Parliament in opposition to Government\u2019s 1.<\/p>\n
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5 levy on electronic transactions.<\/div>\n
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The presentation of the petition followed a four-hour \u201cYentua\u201d street protest by members of the Coalition, mainly activists of the National Democratic Congress, market women, okada riders and some political groupings.<\/div>\n
The protesters, in hundreds, marched from Obra Spot in Accra through the National Theatre to Parliament House with placards some of, which read: \u201cWe won\u2019t pay the E-Levy,\u201d \u201cThe cedi has escaped your cells,\u201d \u201cFix the cedi depreciation now,\u201d \u201cAkufo-Addo have mercy on Ghanaians\u201d and \u201cWe would not accept the E-Levy in any form or shape.\u201d<\/div>\n
Mr George Opare Addo, National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who presented the petition, said the E-Levey would add to the \u201cexisting hardships\u201d Ghanaians were facing and asked the Government to turn to the extractive industry to generate revenue.<\/div>\n
He said the Government could revive the economy if it took steps to block loopholes in the extractive sector.<\/div>\n
Mr Opare Addo said the Government would be \u201cinsensitive\u201d to the citizenry if it implemented the E-Levy and urged it to use resources prudently.<\/div>\n
He said they would continue to demonstrate until the Government dropped the levy.<\/div>\n
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Leader of Parliament, who received the petition, commended the demonstrators for a peaceful protest and stated the resolve of the Minority to reject the levy.<\/div>\n
He said once the people who elected them to office did not support the levy, they would also do their best to stop its passage.<\/div>\n
Mr Bernard Mornah, a former Chairperson of the People\u2019s National Convention, called on the Government to cut down on its expenses and not to \u201cexploit suffering\u201d Ghanaians through E-levy.<\/div>\n
The 1.75 per cent E-levy has generated controversy since it was announced in the 2022 Budget and has sharply divided Parliament, with the Minority vowing to vote against its passage into law.<\/div>\n
The Government has, however, announced its intention to reduce the proposed 1.75 percent to 1.5 percent and re-present it before Parliament.<\/div>\n
The levy is to allow the Government to generate revenue from electronic transactions, including mobile money.<\/div>\n
The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has explained that the E-levy is a \u201cdeep request\u201d from the President to create jobs, build more infrastructure to improve the general well-being of Ghanaians.<\/div>\n
He said the current situation where only a percentage of Ghanaians paid taxes was not favourable to realising the rapid socio-economic aspirations of the country.<\/div>\n
\u201cThe E-levy will make all Ghanaians responsible in paying taxes and reinforce their moral rights to demand for more social amenities and development,\u201d he said at a Town Hall Meeting on the Levy, at Takoradi, last week.<\/div>\n
The E-levy, he emphasised, would help boost education delivery, strengthen internal security, health care services, as well as other government flagship programmes, especially the \u201cYouStart\u201d programme.<\/div>\n
Less than 10 percent of Ghana\u2019s 30.8 million population pay direct taxes.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Accra, Feb. 10, GNA \u2013 Members of the Coalition of Concerned Ghanaians on Thursday presented a petition to Parliament in opposition to Government\u2019s 1. 5 levy on electronic transactions. The presentation of the petition followed a four-hour \u201cYentua\u201d street protest by members of the Coalition, mainly activists of the National Democratic Congress, market women, okada […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":985623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[1791,1453,834,2073,4668,1346],"class_list":["post-985622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-coalition","tag-concerned","tag-ghanaians","tag-parliament","tag-petition","tag-presents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}