Majority of Ghanaians against E-Levy; listen to them – Emile Short to government

A former Commissioner on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short, has called on the government to pay heed to the majority of Ghanaians' views regarding the passage of the controversial E-Levy.

According to Mr Short, most Ghanaians have kicked against the levy's passage and, therefore, the government must do as the people want.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Kofi Oppong Asamoah on the Class Morning Show on a myriad of issues on Class91.3FM, Tuesday, 8 February 2022, Mr Short insisted the government must listen to the view of Ghanaians.

He said: "I think the majority of Ghanaians from a survey that I read are against the E-Levy and it is my view that government should listen to the views and opinions and voices of the majority of Ghanaians on this issue because I think the majority of Ghanaians think that they will be adversely affected by the passing of this e-levy legislation since a lot of electronic transactions are done by quite a sizeable number of Ghanaians.

"So I'm hoping the government will listen to the views of the majority of Ghanaians. I don't think the views and argument the government has put forward for the E-Levy have been supported by the majority of Ghanaians."

Touching on the ongoing E-Levy debate in parliament, Mr Short described as "unfortunate" the extent of anger that led to a brawl among legislators in parliament.

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"First, it's unfortunate that a brawl broke out in parliament arising out of a discussion on the E-Levy, and there were fisticuffs as well as invectives being thrown at each other by the two dominant political parties," he said.

"The expectation of the electorates from the close results of the 2020 elections where we have a hung parliament with an almost equal representation of the two dominant parties was that they will work together, they'll collaborate and arrive at a consensus as supposed to the previous situations where one party had a dominant representation. Unfortunately, that expectation has not been fulfilled. It's unfortunate we are seeing this animosity between the two parties about the E-Levy," he bemoaned.