Ghanaian Economist and political stalwart, Mr. Kwame Pianim has described the proposed 1.75% E-Levy policy as backward and anti-technology.
In an interview on Accra-based Asaase FM, the former CEO of New World Investments strongly kicked against the 1.75% tax on mobile money and other electronic transactions.
The renowned economist said the introduction of the E-Levy in the 2022 Budget Statement is a lazy approach to mobilising revenue.
Kwame Pianim also argued that the policy if implemented will defeat the government’s digitalization agenda in the long run.
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“First of all, I think it is a very backward step. Mobile money has brought financial inclusion to people in the villages who cannot go to the bank and open a bank account. You know what MTN and others are doing, they go to the bank and open an E-wallet for you, we don’t control it they do, they count it as if it is their money, it is not their money.
“It is a lazy way of sitting in the air condition in Ministry of Finance and say ‘oh I want money, oh let me grab this.’ The Ministry of Finance is not a budget and expenditure ministry, it is for development, it is for finance. So you are looking at what will grow the economy not what will give you money…”
He, therefore, called on the government to rather cut down on its expenditure and find other innovative ways of raising revenue.
Recalled the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, announced the E-Levy, a 1.75% tax on mobile money and other electronic transactions, as a measure to “rope the informal sector into the tax net”.
