“Lawlessness” Akufo Addo Starts E-Levy ‘Skirt ‘N’ Blouse’ Style From 1st May

-Lack of Infrastructure To Affect Taxpayers.

The Akufo Addo administration on May 1, 2022, rolled out the much-hated electronic levy (e-levy) despite its illegal passage in Parliament; a pending court case sparking contempt and the fact that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is not ready to collect the tax.

The North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said the government’s rollout of the obnoxious e-levy demonstrates President Akufo-Addo’s blatant lawlessness.

“This is the day the Akufo-Addo government is determined to show Ghanaians and the world just how lawless, undemocratic and tyrannical they are by going ahead to wickedly imposing the unconstitutional E-Levy,” Ablakwa said.

Meanwhile, the GRA has admitted that it indeed does not have all the necessary infrastructure and coordinates in place to start the implementation of the e-levy. Consequently, the Authority has announced it will implement the tax in “a modified-phased approach.”

“Following Ghana Revenue Authority’s assessment of the general readiness of some charging entities to integrate with the e-levy management system, the commissioner general has decided on a modified phased approach for the implementation of the levy from 1st of May 2022,” said a letter from the Commissioner-General, Dr. Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah to charging entities.

Earlier, another Member of Parliament, Sam George Nartey of the Ningo Prampram, had raised an alarm that there is little technology infrastructure to collect the e-levy.

“I can speak on authority that as at close of day as late as 11 pm last night (Wednesday), when the Commissioner-General for the GRA says all the APIs have been given to all Electronic Money Issuers (EMI) is incorrect. At least two APIs are still outstanding,” he said.

“Critical amongst the two is the reversal API. The GRA at the last technical meeting admitted that because all the robustness tests have not been done for the system, there’s a possibility of downtimes where when you place a call to the API to do all the checks before a tax is applied or not applied, and it’s possible that you will not get the checks done in real-time,” he warned

According to Sam George who is on the Communications Committee of Parliament, if the government goes ahead with this half-baked implementation plan, even transactions that are exempt from e-levy charges are likely to be charged.

The government’s plan, he said, is to then later reverse deductions from all those who are exempt. Hon. Sam George makes the point that the huge volume of transactions involved would make these reversals near impossible.

This means that when the technology fails and over-charges a consumer, the government claims it will do a reconciliation at later date and return the extra charges to the consumer. How this will be done effectively is still unclear.

“You have not given any timeline for this reconciliation. So no one knows when the reversal will be done. And critical amongst all is that the APIs that will allow the EMIs and the PSPs to do the reversal has not been given to them. This indicates that the government is not ready to do any reversal for wrong transactions,” he said.