Community Focus Foundation Ghana (CFF-GHANA), a civil society organization (CSO) has called on Ghanaians to reject the infamous e-levy that the Akufo-Addo government is seeking to impose by hook or crook.
In a statement, the group said the tax is not justified.
“While we support the government in taxing relevant services reasonably in putting Ghana on the path of sustained progress, we, however, disagree completely with the government on the now infamous E-levy and call on all Ghanaians to reject same without any hesitation,” the group wrote.
The obnoxious levy seeks to tax savings of people so that even without earning a dime on one’s money in the bank, immediately that individual decides to move or transfer the money the government will tax it.
Majority of Ghanaians and half of Ghanaian legislators have been opposing the tax said to be a major abuse of the principles of taxation with the urging OF Ghanaians.
According to the organization, the government’s move to impose the tax by hook or crook in spite of protestation from Ghanaians shows that the Akufo-Addo and the NPP had lied in opposition when they promised not to tax the poor.
“It is on record that the Vice-President then in opposition, had argued strongly that there’s no need to tax poor citizens using mobile money services. On taxation, Ghanaians were promised that an NPP administration will move from taxation to production…we would be grateful to know what necessitated those mouth-watering promises on whose back the party came to government?,’ the group said their statement on Friday.
It argued that the government does not have justification to impose the tax as it has been very wasteful with public money.
“It is trite knowledge that the Auditor General’s Report clearly indicated that Ghana loses Ghc12 billion every year through corruption. If Government claims the E-levy will give us Ghc7 billion a year, why won’t Government put in measures to recover those stolen monies instead of overburden Ghanaians with an E-levy?” The Group charged.
“We consider the continuous attempt by the regime to forcefully impose a tax described by many as ”nuisance and retrogressive tax” on poor citizens as insensitive, hypocritical, betrayal and demonstration of bad faith towards the Ghanaian people who gave them the mandate to govern.”
While asking the government to stop trying to foist the tax on Ghanaians, it advised the government to rather concentrate on reducing wastage to shore up funds for government business.