Ken Ofori-Atta, Finance Minister, has warned of dire economic consequences if the Electronic Transaction Levy, or E-Levy, the bill fails to pass.
Speaking at a government town hall meeting in Koforidua to persuade the public to support the tax policy, he emphasized that economic gains made by the government in recent years will be reversed if Ghanaians do not support the initiative.
The minority in Parliament has stated that they will not support the bill, but the Finance Minister claims that Ghana’s recent Fitch downgrade is a foreshadowing of what is to come if the bill is not passed.
“If we don’t do this E-levy, we are just pushing ourselves in a way that would potentially end up in such a disaster. There was a warning of that because last week was a very difficult week for the country.”
“Last week we got downgraded by Fitch because they do not believe we could raise the revenues that we had forecasted because we were fighting about E-levy…so we need to moderate that because the consequences are quick,” he said.
According to him, the levy is necessary for the country’s economic fortunes; thus, Ghanaians should be enthusiastic about the policy because “it will give us about 6.9 billion.”
