Withdraw failed E-Levy to motivate people to embrace cashless economy – Prof Gatsi urges gov’t

The Dean of the School of Business at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Prof. John Gatsi says it is time the government scrapped the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy).

In his view, the levy has failed and must be withdrawn to motivate Ghanaians to embrace the cashless economy.

Speaking to TV3 in an interview, Prof. John Gatsi argued that comparing the cost of implementing the levy against the money it is raking in, it is not encouraging for government to keep the levy in place.

“So when you look at the cost to this country, in terms of actual amount of money being spent on infrastructure to roll out the implementation of the tax, and again the cost of people not participating in the benefits of the digitalization and for that matter cashless transactions regime, you can come to the conclusion that the failure tax should be rejected, it should be withdrawn to allow people to participate in cashless economy,” Prof. John Gatsi said.

Since the start of its implementation on May 1, the E-Levy missed the projected revenue target for the first two months.

With things not looking good, the government has revised downwards its projected revenue target for the rest of the year from the initial GHS6.9billion as stated in the 2022 budget statement to GHS611million in the Mid-Year Budget Review presented by the Finance Minister.