E-Levy: Bawumia Instrumental In Setting GH₵100 Pro-Poor Threshold – Information Minister

Information Minister, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah has disclosed that the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia played a key role in arriving at the fine details of the E-Levy.

According to him, the Vice President actively participated in meetings to ensure that the poor in society were not adversely affected by the implementation of the levy.

He said it was the instrumentality of the Vice President that the GH₵100 threshold for Mobile Money transactions was included in the bill to ensure that the poor were protected.

This, according to the Information Minister, was anchored on Dr. Bawumia’s principle of ‘protecting the poor’ in tandem with his earlier stance that MoMo should not be taxed as it was going to affect the poor.

He also dismissed calls for the Vice President to have commented extensively on the E-Levy in his April 7 lecture stating that it was not necessary as government officials had answered all questions relating to the levy.

“He was very instrumental in Cabinet meetings and the EMT [Economic Management Team] meetings to ensure that that his principled argument of ‘protect the poor’ was upheld and that is why the threshold of GHC100 which accounts for 40% of MoMo transactions on a daily basis was excluded from this levy.

“So in substance, the two issues that people will want him to hear him speak to has been addressed. It may have been nice if he repeated all those that have been addressed but he necessarily didn’t have to do that,” Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah said on Citi TV’s current affairs programme, ‘The Big Issue’.

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, delivered a public lecture on the economy on April 7 over the recent economic crunch.

Ahead of the lecture, most people had waited with bated breath to hear the Vice President speak on the E-levy which had been passed on March 29 despite a public outcry against the tax measure.

This is because Dr. Bawumia in an interview with Accra-based Peace FM opined that he does not believe Mobile Money should be taxed as it was going to affect the poor.

However, the Vice President in his 2-hour presentation only mentioned E-levy once when he spoke about taxes that the government has introduced.

By: ghanaweb.com