The minority MPs in parliament have threatened to reject new taxes announced by Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in the 2022 budget presentation.
Ofori-Atta announced the scrapping of road tolls and the introduction of E-levy to cover Mobile money transactions, remittances, and other electronic transactions.
Fees and charges of government services have also been increased by 15%.
“Total value of transactions for 2020 was estimated to be over GHS 500 billion Cedis compared to GH¢78 billion Cedis in 2016 just 5 years ago, while total mobile money subscribers and active mobile money users have grown by an average rate of 18% and 16% respectively between 2016 and 2019. Mr. Speaker, it is becoming clear there exists an enormous potential to increase tax revenues by bringing into the tax bracket, transactions that could be best defined as being undertaken in the “shadow economy”.
“After considerable deliberations, the Government has decided to place a levy on all electronic transactions to widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector. This shall be known as the “Electronic Transaction Levy or E-Levy.”
Reacting to the presentation Ranking member for the finance committee Cassiel Ato Forson and his deputy Isaac Adongo argued the levies will overburden the already suffering masses.
They assured the minority will scrutinize the levies and reject them if need be.
“These are people who keep exploiting our vulnerabilities in order to throw a bitter pill down our throat…So I just want to encourage Ghanaians that going forward when these people tell you that they are bringing good things, look at how much they are taking from your pocket,” Isaac Adongo told Starr News.
General Secretary for the NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia has accused the government of failing to relieve the masses of the current hardships in the budget.
According to him, the government is revisiting the plan to construct a new chamber of parliament in spite of the financial difficulties the country is going through.
