Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Ken Ashigbey, has revealed that transfer of monies has been made to government since implementation of the e-levy commenced.

Dr Ashigbey indicated that the funds are deposited into the Consolidated Fund as directed by government after every two days. He noted that the directive was issued by the Commissioner General that after “48 hours you transfer the money to Consolidated Fund”.

“… There have been transfers that have been made to the government of the levy that has been collected… The E-levy is expected to generate a little above GHS4.5 billion by end of year.”
Ken Ashigbey

Intensify education on e-levy

In order for government to achieve its revenue target, Dr Ashigbey explained that education on the implementation of the e-levy must be intensified. He expressed that due to the insufficient information on the implementation process, it’s encouraging unscrupulous people to engage in nefarious activities.

The CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications highlighted that education is necessary as some people have needlessly inflated the e-levy charge to the cost of items when that should not be so.

“A typical example of people who when somebody is going to do a cash-in, to put money into his wallet, and we all know that cash-ins there’s no charge even from the EMIs on that and certainly there’s no e-levy on that. It’s the same thing that is happening when somebody is going to do a cash-out but some of the people are tempting to do that.
“Another example also is the situation where somebody goes to buy fuel; he uses a card to make the purchase. So, the person says he was buying 400 cedis, it is not for you the vendor to add the tax to it before you key it in. You key it in, if there’s going to be a charge – currently all merchants are exempted but you find some of them adding all of those to that.
Ken Ashigbey

Dr Ashigbey iterated the need for a lot more work to be done to educate the masses. He explained that most of the teething problems would have been averted if “massive education” was undertaken just as it was done with the “redenomination of the cedi”.

On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Association of Bankers, John Awuah, commended the parties involved in the implementation of the e-levy. He revealed that considering the limited time the telcos, banks, fintechs and the Ghana Revenue Authority had to set up the system for the implementation of the levy, they have relatively ensured a smooth implementation of the levy.

“If you ask me, if the phased approach had been recommended earlier sometime in February or March, if we had gone with that approach, perhaps, the challenges we are having now will be less pronounced. But having said that, if you look at the enormity of this implementation, I think the people who have worked on this deserve some pat on their backs.”
John Awuah