{"id":986092,"date":"2022-02-11T11:07:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T11:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/11\/our-whole-future-not-on-e-levy-finance-minister\/"},"modified":"2022-02-11T11:07:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T11:07:05","slug":"our-whole-future-not-on-e-levy-finance-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/02\/11\/our-whole-future-not-on-e-levy-finance-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Our whole future not on E-Levy\u2014Finance Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Accra, Feb 10, GNA \u2013 The Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, says Government\u2019s plan is not to use proceeds from the proposed Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy) to solve all the economic challenges facing the economy.<\/p>\n
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He said the government would use monies generated from the E-Levy to complement other sources of revenue to manage its debt situation, improve infrastructure, and mitigate rising unemployment in the country.<\/div>\n
Speaking at the third in a series of the government Town Hall meeting on the levy in the Northern Region on Thursday, he said: \u201cIt is not that we\u2019re hanging our whole future on E-Levy, but we know that E-Levy is even going to grow more.\u201d<\/div>\n
Mr Ofori-Atta indicated that the government would also leverage on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to bring in more trade and investments.<\/div>\n
The Minister said: \u201cWe\u2019re in a period that investment and trade is really the new battle of emancipation, and we\u2019re going to use that as a leverage to be able to bring investment in a regional place to move forward.\u201d<\/div>\n
Explaining the need to have the levy implemented, he said, there was the need to strengthen governance, \u201cso that we don\u2019t waste money. But when you see a new way of making money for the State, which means that the old ones would diminish, then that\u2019s where we have to go for.\u201d<\/div>\n
Touching on figures, he noted that in 2016, the country had GH\u20b578 billion of transfers on Mobile Money (MoMo), but that had increased to almost a trillion (GH\u20b5953 billion) in recent times.<\/div>\n
He explained that the economy was changing and people were taking advantage of that, and quizzed: \u201cshouldn\u2019t the State benefit?\u201d<\/div>\n
He reiterated that the government would not resort to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout programme, insisting that handlers of the economy could manage resources for economic revitalisation and transformation.<\/div>\n
Mr Ofori-Atta said: \u201cWhatever we do, we\u2019re not [going to the IMF]. The consequences are dire. We\u2019re a proud nation; we have the resources, and the capacity to do it if only we speak that one language and ensure that we burden share in the issues ahead.\u201d<\/div>\n
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), said his Party would abolish the Levy when in power.<\/div>\n
During a street protest organised by the Youth Wing of the NDC in Accra, also on Thursday, he said: \u201cIt is not taxation. It is daylight robbery. Taking people\u2019s capital from their pockets. We will abolish it within the first 100 days (about 3 and a half months) we assume power.\u201d<\/div>\n
He added: \u201cWe [the NDC] are not against taxation. Taxation is for value addition. But we will not sit and watch the government robbing us. The alternatives are there.\u201d<\/div>\n
Some Ghanaians, who followed the meeting on Facebook, expressed their views on the levy.<\/div>\n
The government announced the introduction of a 1.75 percent E-levy in the 2022 budget on MoMo payments, bank transfers, merchant payments, and inward remittances.<\/div>\n
This announcement generated controversy, making the Finance Minister announce a reduction of the proposed 1.75 percent to 1.5 percent.<\/div>\n
It is expected that the country would generate about seven billion in 2022 from the E-Levy upon its implementation.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Accra, Feb 10, GNA \u2013 The Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, says Government\u2019s plan is not to use proceeds from the proposed Electronic Transactions Levy (E-Levy) to solve all the economic challenges facing the economy. He said the government would use monies generated from the E-Levy to complement other sources of revenue to manage its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":986093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[4812,2587,1223],"class_list":["post-986092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-elevyfinance","tag-future","tag-minister"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986092","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=986092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=986092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=986092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=986092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}