E-Levy Won’t Solve Our Problems – Kwesi Pratt

E-Levy won’t solve our problems; we need to move beyond this ‘childish numbers games’ Kwesi Pratt – Editor-in-Chief of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr has once again shot down the relevance of the electronic transaction tax, popularly called e-levy.

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta announced the e-levy during his presentation of the 2022 budget last year but the policy has been met with strong opposition with the opponents asserting it will worsen the living conditions of Ghanaians.

In order to sensitize the citizenry in hope to get them to back the government to pass the e-levy bill, the government has been engaging the populace in Townhall meetings explaining the significance of this levy to them. Should the policy be implemented, government will deduct 1.5% on all electronic transactions, particularly on MOMO and bank transfers.

However, the Minority in Parliament have refused to approve the levy and the Majority caucus is also finding it difficult to marshal support from their chamber to implement the policy. Making his submissions on Peace FM’s ”Kokrokoo”, Kwesi Pratt stated
emphatically that the e-levy will not solve Ghana’s problems.

According to him, there are pressing needs like solving the gold sector challenges where Ghana is losing huge monies that must be addressed, not the e-levy which, to him, ”doesn’t quite even address the fundamental
problems. It doesn’t resolve our deficit problems and so on…”

He also opined that e-levy, as it stands now, won’t be passed anytime soon. This is because, he explained, some Members of Parliament are sick and the Dome/Kwabenya MP, Sarah Adwoa Safo, as widely circulated around, has also refused to come back to Parliament.

He, therefore, asked the MPs to stop their ”numbers game” politics stressing the only way to solve the economic problems confronting Ghanaians is for there to be a national consensus.

”This numbers game you are playing in Parliament won’t help Ghana. It won’t help opposition and Ghana. We should move beyond this childish
numbers game and begin to build national consensus on the state of the economy and the way forward. There’s no alternative,” he exclaimed.