CEO of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey
GCL has sent some proposals on the e-levy to the minister of finance, parliament and the Bank of Ghana
Telcos want e-levy to start at a low threshold
E-levy may have unintended consequences, Dr Ashigbey
Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications (GCL), Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, has confirmed that engagements were ongoing between them and government to come to a consensus on the e-levy.
He said the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has sent some proposals which included studies on countries with similar taxes to the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta to parliament and the Bank of Ghana.
Ken Ashigbey who disclosed this in an interview with GhanaWeb said: “It is a conversation that we are having with government and we are also sharing some learning from other markets, some researchers that have been done in other places”.
He added that the very recent example of a country that introduced e-levy was Tanzania which led to some unintended consequences, leading to the government’s reduction on the levy by some 30 percent in just three months.
“We are hoping that we would be able to work with government to ensure that government raises revenue; we completely understand the fact that tax revenues are important but we also have some concerns so that this levy thus not become inimical to governments own digitalisation agenda and the financial inclusion drive”, he said.
He told GhanaWeb that the spirit of this engagement was to ensure that the unintended consequences that were seen in other countries do not materialize in Ghana.
“If you look at the markets even one percent is quite high, some of them who have done less than the one percent have suffered”, he added
He said the telecommunications companies (Telcos) were hoping that the levy would start at a lower threshold so that people do not feel it so that it does not disrupt digitalisation agenda and governments own revenue which would affect the drive to create more jobs and entrepreneurship.