According to Kwaku Kwarteng, the chairman of the finance committee in parliament, the e-levy will be withdrawn if the government determines it is not a beneficial policy.
His remarks follow a tweet from prominent NPP member Gabby Otchere-Darko in which she claimed that the e-levy was not meeting government expectations.
He revealed that the Electronic Transactions Levy (e-levy) has earned less than $60 million after over two months of implementation and made a suggestion that the government should go to the IMF for assistance.
What choices does the government have? What alternative, if chosen, can restore investor confidence in our economy, should be the real question. Will it assist even if we manage to raise the $3–5 billion necessary? "E-levy, which was supposed to have generated us about 600 million by now, has only produced less than 60 million," he claimed.
Kwaku Kwarteng responded to the remark by saying that it is still too early to determine whether or not a significant programme like the e-levy has been successful.
He urged on Ghanaians to have patience while explaining that the mechanism required to allow the complete deployment of the e-levy was not yet ready on JoyNews' PM Express.
Since the e-levy is meant to be collected on an electronic platform, if you're paying, there is a sense in which the implementation has not even fully started.
If you pay 100 cedis with your momo and then try to pay the following 100 with your bank account, the system will detect that you have already over your limit. That platform is still in the development stage.
Real-time monitoring is not feasible because it hasn't been put into operation. Therefore, I'm not sure if we have acquired data from all the collecting agencies, despite the statistics we are seeing. Allowing the collecting agencies to declare is what GRA is attempting to achieve as they work to finish constructing the platform. I doubt that the GRA has even had a chance to audit when they announce. They will now proceed with the audit. "None of it has taken place," he added.
As a result, he said that it is premature for the media to start discussing the e-failure. levy's
Therefore, I'm not sure if these data, which are being tossed around, are accurate. Let's be patient; it took a long time for us to pass the e-levy policy, so let's take our time. Government will withdraw itself if it later proves to be a bad policy.
"However, I think it's still early, so I ask that you spare the media from starting this conversation about a significant programme like this, which you would say has probably failed. In some way, we had anticipated that you would implement the policy and that money would start pouring in right away. We won't be going to get that.