When asked if the government will scrap the E-levy because Ghana will receive funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Ministry of Finance provided a negative response.
The IMF's assistance to Ghana, according to the ministry, would be used to shore up the country's foreign reserves and sustain the balance of payments.
"The government is committed to ensuring the smooth operationalization of all taxes, including the e-levy, in order to ensure that in addition to the IMF's resources, the government can continue to support its developmental goals on its own while ensuring that tax-to-GPD ratio increases to the peer range of 16 percent -18 percent.
"An IMF-supported programme is likely to motivate the government to look into what's preventing the e-levy from being successful (including by offering technical assistance if necessary) and come up with plans to make it better. Other tax changes might also be taken into account for the medium term, according to the Ministry.
Some observers, like Mr. Benjamin Boakye, Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), argued the e-levy ought to be eliminated once it was revealed that Ghana was looking for IMF assistance.
The failure of the e-levy was crystal clear from the start, according to Mr. Boakye, who was a guest on TV3's New Day show with Berla Mundi on Monday, July 4.
When asked if the government's choice to consult the IMF should result in the cancellation of the e-levy, Mr. Boakye responded, "The e-levy, we warned government it wasn't going to work from the start and they didn't listen. It's one of the factors that contributed to our realisation that we only receive 10% when we woke up one morning.
"It is a simple economic reality that the impoverished have more energy to fight back when you try to tax them. You would much prefer see the impoverished become large and start paying taxes. If you look at our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the formal sector accounts for 71% of it.
That means that if you try to spend more money to target the 30% of the poor, you won't collect any money from there since the leakages are in the formal sector. The facts, which the administration refused to examine, make it plain.
He said, "I think that has to go.