“When I see the energy, especially with which graduates who have gone through free SHS are against E-levy, I ask whether they are calculating what the cost is,” Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has lamented.
According to him, he cannot fathom why a policy that is for the greater good of the people will be vehemently resisted.
“So assuming I divide this 7 billion by 21 million of us, it is about 300 cedis a year for each person, divide by 12.
“So when I see the energy especially with which graduates who have gone through free senior high are against E-levy, I ask whether they are calculating what the cost is and I ask in truthfulness that does any graduate make more than 8,000 or 5,000?” he queried.
Speaking at the government’s third Town Hall Meeting on the E-levy in Tamale, he indicated it was important for the focus to be on the resources needed to fund policies.
“Assuming you are a graduate and you even made 100,000 cedis a year and you transfer all of that through MoMo, how much will that be? 10 per cent of 100,000 is 10,000, so a third of that is 3,000. So 3,000 cedis for your roads, for your free education, for all of that and you are up in arms,” he stated.
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He further questioned how government can mobilise the resources for development if Ghanaians do not want to pay.
“So truly who should be paying for it? You have every responsibility to ask me to account for it. But we as a people can’t pretend that we don’t need these resources to do what we are doing,” he added.
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