A chartered Financial Economist, Mr. Peter Kwame Kuutol has taken a swipe at the Akufo-Addo led administration over its mismanagement of the country’s economy.
According to Mr. Kutool, a major section of the Ghanaian people including himself believed that the e-levy was a better approach to support the internal economic recovery.
He added that, it was a better option because it could have prevented Ghana from going to IMF and allow the country not to be restricted by the international monetary policy.
However, Mr. Kuutol stated that government’s decision to consider an IMF bailout made some section of the Ghanaian people to draw back there were two school of thoughts thus to continue or to abandon the e-levy but the country needed so there was the need for it and the reason was that it will fetch the country money.
He argued that the electronic economy had become buoyant and if the government begin to tax people it will generate more revenue for the state. The Economist however argued that the support for the e-levy was missed base on the fact that the value of the levy was overlooked for volume.
He said, When we looked at the issue, we realized that the electronic economy has become big and buoyant and if we begin to tax people, the state will generate more revenue to run the country but there was something we missed it. For some of us who supported the e-levy, we missed it. The we were looking at Volume rather than value and that’s where we missed it”, he said.
He explained that if a sender moves Gh5,000 out a deposited Gh10,000 to a receiver, the value is still remains Gh10,000 but the volume has increased to Gh15, 000. According to him, the analysis of the levy was done based on Volume rather than the Value because the Volume of transaction was about Gh300 billion but in the actual value of money in circulation was about Gh8billion.
Therefore, he added that the government’s stand on that calculation to come out with such projections has failed. Unfortunately, the government thought the e-levy will be an inelastic product (which means few people will move from the use of the mobile money) but in actual fact, it became an elastic product which means, lot of people have desist from using the e-levy.
The government’s first two analysis established that there is a shift in the production line which was targeting the individual to the Merchant and clearly, the policy is on the verge of failing. At this same time the country is struggling.
Government’s target for every month of e-levy was around Gh600 million and unfortunately, it is making less than the targeted figure. Preliminary information reveals that the government is making about Gh1.11 million a day.
