The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has predicted economic disaster for Ghana if Parliament does not pass the Electronic Transfer Levy (E-levy).
According to him, there are already some unfavorable signals from global ratings that need to be worked on to avoid consequences.
“If we don’t do this E-levy, we are just pushing ourselves in a way that would potentially end up in such a disaster. There was a warning because last week was a very difficult week for the country,” he predicted.
The Minister made these statements during the government’s town-hall meeting on E-levy held at the Eastern Regional Capital – Koforidua Thursday, 27th January 2022.
He continued “Last week we got downgraded by Fitch because they do not believe we could raise the revenues that we had forecasted because we were fighting about E-levy. So we need to moderate that because the consequences are quick.”
Meanwhile, the meeting between government and the Minority in Parliament held on Thursday, 27th January 2022 over the controversial E-Levy has ended inconclusively.
The Government side led by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta maintained the1.75% rate of the levy will not change. The position of the Finance Minister, Starr News has learnt, got the Minority to question the essence of the engagement in the first place.
The two sides have however resolved to have further engagements on the matter.
The Minority side was led by its leader Haruna Iddrisu, Chief whip Muntaka Mubarak and other leaders.