Minister of Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta is leading a government delegation to the Western Region for another Town hall meeting on the Electronic Transfer Levy (e-levy) today.
This is the second Town hall meeting on the controversial levy in less than a week.
The Information Minister, Mr. Kojo Oppong believes the town hall meeting will give the opportunity for citizens to engage more with the government to understand the benefits of the e-levy when passed.
It is however unclear if the town hall meeting will be held in all 16 regions.
Meanwhile a former New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for New Juaben South, and a one-time Chair of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Dr. Mark Assibey Yeboah, is urging the government to reconsider its decision not to go back to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the face of the country’s dwindling revenues.
He maintained that the government’s insistence on passing the Electronic-Transaction Levy to shore up its revenue target is not right given the existential economic challenges.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration has indicated that despite Ghana’s fiscal crisis, it is not settling on returning to the IMF for financial support but will look at prioritizing domestic revenue generation through the implementation of the E-Levy.
Despite the government’s intensified efforts in a bid to convince more Ghanaians to accept the imposition of the 1.75% Electronic Transaction Levy, a new survey suggests that 56 percent of self-confessed New Patriotic Party supporters sampled are against the unpopular policy.
On average, 72 percent of respondents are against the e-levy, according to the survey by Global Info Analytics.