Some residents of Walewale in the North East Region have called on the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, to intervene and stop the passage of the E-levy Bill.
Noting the electronic transaction, particularly mobile money services, as the means of safeguarding their capital, the residents said the levy’s passage will have adverse implications, including the collapse of their businesses.
Speaking to JoyNews, a fridge technician, Hamidu Abakar, said implementing the levy will put pressure on his little income.
“As for the E-levy, we don’t want it today; we don’t want it tomorrow. So we want the Vice President, [Dr Bawumia] to come out and tell the Majority to stop pushing for it,” he stated.
One Civil Servant, Mohammed Rabiw, believed that the tax policy is regressive and should be aborted immediately.
“It [E-levy] is not the solution to Ghana’s problems. Are they [government] telling us that they will not add extra taxes next year if they pass this levy? I think they are just finding the easiest way out.
“Our senior brother, Dr Bawumia, has even said that it is not good to tax MoMo, so are we saying that all that he was telling us were lies?” he quizzed.
Adding his voice, a former Northern Region Minister, Abubakari Abdallah, sent what he described as “an important word” to Dr Bawumia.
According to him, the Walewale constituency is a prime location for armed robbers, especially on market days; thus, traders can secure their business capital by saving it on mobile money.
In view of that, imposing the 1.75% tax will only intensify the hardships of these traders.
“When market women travel to and from the big markets in the region, they are rampantly attacked by robbers where they lose their capital. The only haven for these women is to elude the robbers by saving on their momo wallets.
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“So if the policy is good for everyone in Ghana, I would want to remind my big brother that tax is not good for his people in the Walewale area, so he should reconsider,” he intimated.
He further noted that the desperate attempt to impose the tax policy on the citizenry exposes the government’s incompetence.
“Nobody needs to tell you that this government is desperate. They have mismanaged the economy, and their performance so far is so abysmal and appalling that they have decided to look everywhere and anywhere for money,” he said.