The government proposal to reduce the rate of the proposed Electronic Transactions Levy from 1.75% to 1.5 percent has been rejected by the Minority in Parliament.
The reduction according to government, is informed by the concession from Telecommunications to cut down their 1% charge on transactions by 0.25%.
The e-levy was introduced by the government through the Finance Minister during the 2022 Budget on basic transactions related to digital payments and electronic platform transactions.
Per the Finance Minister, the E-levy will apply to electronic transactions that are more than GHS 100 on a daily basis. This is different from the 1% telecommunications charge on transactions.
According to the budget, up to 0.25 percentage points of the 1.5 percent e-transaction levy or 16.7 percent of the yield from the levy, should be used to support road infrastructure development.
Ten percent of the 0.25 percentage points, i.e. 1.67% of the yield from the levy, would be dedicated to the improvement in public transportation, including the purchase of buses.
However, the levy since it announcement by the Finance Minister has received some level of criticism especially from the opposition NDC, because of its impact on mobile money transactions and poor Ghanaians that use it.
The minority said they will not support the E-levy passage in Parliament.
Apexnewsgh.com/Ghana
