Government made telcos reduce momo charges by 0.25 percentage point – Essuman

Minority against levy

Minority still oppose to new E-Levy rate

A legal advisor to the president, Kow Essuman, has indicated that the E-Levy would be 1.25 percent and not 1.75 percent when passed by Parliament.

He said when the levy was originally introduced by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, at 1.75 percent, agitations by the public led to government negotiating with telecommunication companies to reduce the rate mobile money (momo) charges by 0.25 percentage points.

Kow Essuman who said this on his twitter handle stated that the reduction means government has also listened to Ghanaians on the controversial e-levy and reduced the level by 0.25 percentage points which implies the net E-Levy would be 1.25 percent.

“The e-levy rate was 1.75%. Ghanaians complained and Govt negotiated with the Telcos to ease the burden on Ghanaians, which resulted in a 0.25% reduction on the Telcos end. Govt has listened further and reduced the rate by another 0.25% resulting in a net e-levy rate of 1.25%,” he said.

“When the e-levy is passed, Ghanaians will be paying a net rate of 1.25% on transactions that attract the e-levy (over GHS 100 per day transactions). This is a 0.5% reduction from the initial 1.75%. The Government listened,” the lawyer added.

The legal advisor to the president however noted that minority caucus in parliament were still opposed to the levy despite the compromises by government.

According to him, the opposition by the minority caucus in parliament was purely political and not in the interest of Ghana.

There are reports that during a meeting with the leadership of the majority caucus and the government agreed to reduce the E-Levy from 1.75 percent to 1.5 percent.

The minority caucus, however, has rejected the compromise, saying they (the minority) want the levy to be scrapped totally.

Below is Kow Essuman’s tweet: